Audiobooks

For many years, educational leaders have been making the link between listening to
audiobooks and developing enhanced literacy skills such as uency, comprehension, and increased vocabulary.Astute educators and librarians have been integrating audiobooks into their lesson plans to help engage non-readers, level the playing eld for English language learners, and slow down those voracious readers who dont read carefully enough for thorough comprehension. With the growth and development of the common reading experience, professors and administrators now have the opportunity to increase participation by adding the audiobook option to their programming, both to better engage non-readers or to simply enhance the reading experience.

Making the link between listening and the First-Year/Common Reading Experience
H Movies are adaptations of the text; audiobooks
areword-for-word oral versions of the text. H The accessibility of audiobooks makes them a great choice for international students and non-readers, who want to join the discussion, but face some challenges.

Twenty-rst century students have been pushing buttons since the get-go and are comfortable and attracted to devices in their learning space. Audiobooks are a satisfying combination of an old-fashioned tradition and todays technology.
Jon Scieszka, author, www.guyslisten.com

Getting Started
Bring Audiobooks into Your Evaluation Process: Examination copies are available (in most cases) on CD, and always as digital downloads. Please contact commonreads@randomhouse.com with your request. Site Licenses Are Available: Audiobook les can be delivered to students via a download link on a schools website or intranet. Contact Maren McCamley at mmccamley@randomhouse.com for more information. Share an Audiobook Clip: Clips are available for ALL of our titles at randomhouseaudio.com. From the website, you can download the clips as thumbnails, as well as embed or share them. For example, you can include clips in your newsletters, post them on your website, and insert them into presentations. Contact cherman@ randomhouse.comfor special clip requests.

Audiobook Stats
According to the Audio Publishers Associations annual sales & consumer surveys: H Audiobook listeners are more voracious readers of print books than non-listeners. H Use is primarily in the car, but listeners are increasingly using audiobooks during exercise, cooking, gardening, and at work. H Digital downloads now account for 60% of sales through retail channels. H The younger generation of listeners has a strong preference for downloads. H The unabridged format continues to dominate with 90% of audios sold.

Why Audiobooks?

H 30% of people are auditory learnersprocessing information best through listening. H 85% of what we learn, we learn by listening . . . For students, listening is THE
dominant learning medium, fundamental to grasping all other language arts: reading, writing, and speaking. H Audiobooks promote a sense of intimacy and human connectionwe listened to stories long before we read them. Audiobooks reinforce good storytelling, an important tradition in human history.

In the ever-changing technological landscape, the art of listening is an essential component in developing literate, critical thinkers.

Consider the power of the spoken word to energize the learning climate at your college or university.