Audiobooks for children occupy a fascinating and somewhat contested space in the literacy world. Some educators worry that audiobooks let children 'cheat' their way through reading without developing decoding skills. The developmental research tells a more nuanced story — one in which audiobooks, used well, are a powerful literacy development tool.
The central insight is that listening comprehension and reading comprehension are separate but connected skills. Research by Sticht and James (1984) established that listening comprehension typically outpaces reading comprehension until around age 13–14, when decoding becomes fast enough that reading comprehension catches up. For young children, this gap is enormous: a 7-year-old whose reading level is 'first grade' may have listening comprehension at a 5th-grade level.
Audiobooks allow children to engage with stories and vocabulary at their comprehension level rather than their decoding level — providing exposure to complex narrative structures, rich vocabulary, and advanced concepts that early-reader books can't offer. Research by Koskinen and colleagues found that children who listened to audiobooks while following along in the physical book showed significant gains in both vocabulary and word recognition.
When children listen to an audiobook while following along in the physical book (running their finger under text or simply looking at each page), they receive multi-modal input that reinforces the connection between the spoken word and the printed word. This is particularly powerful for children learning to read, as it provides the fluency modeling that struggling readers lack.
Repeated listening to the same audiobook while following along is one of the most effective repeated-reading strategies available — and children are more motivated to repeat a favorite story than to re-read a decodable reader.
- •For pre-readers: Listen together and discuss. Audiobooks are read-alouds in a different format — apply all the dialogic reading strategies.
- •For beginning readers: Choose audiobooks paired with physical copies, and encourage following along. Start with books just above their independent reading level.
- •For reluctant readers: Audiobooks often convert reluctant readers by exposing them to the pleasure of stories without the frustration of decoding. Once a child falls in love with stories through audio, motivation to decode often follows.
- •For car time and household tasks: Audiobooks are ideal for times when screen-based reading is impractical. Children listening to audiobooks during car rides are building literacy.
- •Connect to music: Choose audiobooks based on books that have song adaptations, or follow audiobook listening with related songs on the same topic or theme.