Out of those five activities, rest time has required the most creativity from me as I work to keep it part of our day throughout all kinds of growth and change. Rest time for Jonah currently means a mid-day nap, but for Nicole, is usually means quietly playing in her room for an hour after lunch. She has the choice to nap if she needs to but 9 times out of 10, she is busy playing in the solitude of her room.
Nicole has been a reluctant sleeper since her birth so I have long anticipated that she would not be a mid-day napper forever. I have been strategically thinking through her rest hour for years, knowing that I didn't want to throw away that mid-day reprieve for either of us, even if sleep was not longer part of the equation. It was no small feat to create and implement the boundaries necessary to transition from a time of sleep to a time of rest, but we have all benefitted from that transition. One thing that has helped tremendously are audiobooks.
Nicole received a CD player for her 3rd birthday and she has been playing music and books on it daily since that happy day. I cannot recommend adding audiobooks to either your car time or your rest time enough, but only after some intentional thoughtfulness. We used the following guidelines when we choose the audiobooks that come into our family, and I hope they help you expand your listening library too.
1. Start with a familiar story. The internet makes it incredibly easy to find and download a plethora of fantastic audiobooks for kids. What I discovered is that these titles do not have the same appeal or power if the story isn't a familiar one.
I personally use audiobooks as a way to listen to books I haven't read yet. Nicole uses audiobooks to revisit stories she already knows and loves. I quickly learned that especially for a young child, pictures provide context and fill in information gaps that might be missing. Picture books in particular, usually tell part of the story in text and the other part in pictures, so one without the other isn't a complete story. But, once your child has a mental picture of the story from reading the physical book, then he or she can enjoy listening to the text while replaying the pictures in their mind.
2. If the story isn't familiar, make it one before switching to audio-only.
This one may seem obvious, especially given the first guideline, but I had to learn this the hard way.
After attempting a few excellent audiobooks that never captivated my young listener, I learned that for a young child pictures provide context and fill in information gaps that might be missing. Picture books in particular, usually tell part of the story in text and the other part in pictures, so one without the other isn't a complete story. Only after your child has a mental picture of the story from reading the physical book can he or she can enjoy listening to the text while replaying the pictures in their mind.
3. Use the car for a dry run.
Listening to a story without the anchor of words or pictures on a page, can be a challenge. I was aware of the potential difficulties in engaging in stories through audio only but I still wanted to test the waters, so I started by playing audiobooks in the car.
I had a captive audience and plenty of routine errands to run so I gave it a whirl We spent weeks listening to the same audiobook in the car over and over again. Even though we all had that book memorized, I was amazed that it never lost its appeal. My experiment proved that Nicole could be swept up in a familiar story through audio alone, so I introduced the idea of playing them on her personal cd player in. The idea was received with enthusiastic cheers and we haven't looked back since. Although, we have had to make some adjustments along the way. Which brings me to my next guideline. . .
4. Anticipate what sound effects might be in the audio version of the book. Nicole is incredibly sensitive to noise so one adjustment I had to make was to anticipate what the sound effects in the audio version would sound like to a four-year-old, alone in her room. Meaning, some of the books we thoroughly enjoyed while we were together, scared or upset her while she listened to them privately. One such example is Nancy Shaw's silly book "Sheep in a Jeep". The friendly "beep beep" used for the page turn signal was delightful but the sound effect used at the end when the Jeep crashes, was scary for Nicole. Similarly, we were all happily quoting the rhythmic text of Bill Martin Jr's "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" in the comfort of our living room but once Nicole was alone with the audio on her room, she couldn't handle the climax of the story when all of the letters fall out of the coconut tree. Even fun and innocent stories can include sound effects that aren't fun or innocent to a sensitive child.
5. Make sure it's a story worth repeating.
When we get audiobooks from the library, if they are a hit, we keep them for up to 9 weeks. So far, the average length of audiobook we've listened to is 10 minutes long. If Nicole listens to that book on repeat during the entire length of her rest time (which she typically does), then she listens to that book at least 6 times a day. Even if she only keeps that audiobook for a week, she will still have listened to it a minimum of 42 times by the time we return it. The time adds up and so do the words, story line and characters. It goes without saying then that the words used and the messages shared should be ones that you don't mind becoming a permanent part of your child's mind and heart.
6. Don't completely replace books with audiobooks
Audiobooks are wonderful, but they can never replace the connection that comes from sharing a physical book with one another. So far, we use audiobooks only during times when reading together isn't appropriate, such as driving or rest time. Don't get me wrong, we've tried using audiobooks at other times but they don't have the same draw that our own read alouds do. Physical books connect us in ways that almost nothing else can. There is room for both kind of reading at our house, and I think you'll discover that there is in yours too.
Nicole is helping me compile a list of her favorite audiobooks, which we will be sharing sometime in the near future.
I hope you're having a great week!
Love,
Erica
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