Doesn’t everyone enjoy listening to a book read aloud? Reading aloud to children gives their learning a real boost, but what if you aren’t able to read to your children (or your class)? What do you do? Years ago I taped myself reading several children’s books so that I could play them at night when I had a cold or just wasn’t feeling up to telling a story. These days you can pull up a website or a YouTube video and let someone else do the reading.
Here are a few places to find wonderful children’s books and tales read aloud online: (Note: It’s always a good idea to watch or listen to the story through once yourself, because you never know when a site might have been hacked and inappropriate material added.)
- AOL Kids with books shows the pages of children’s books as a voice reads to them
- Storyline Online presents members of the Screen Actor’s Guild reading children’s books. If you aren’t convinced, click on “More Stories” and try Pamela Reed reading Stellaluna. Wow!
- Mrs. P (TV Star Kathy Kinney) reads books to children while in character.
- The Aesop’s Fables website is a classic. Now you can hear the fables as well as see the text. (Act out the fables when you are done listening).
If you go to YouTube and search for “children’s books read aloud” you can find a wealth of videos, some read by professionals and others not.
For example, you can find Bill Martin reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
Isn’t that wonderful?
You can find a number of books read aloud at the Penguin Storytime channel.
Penguin Young Reader’s Channel has book trailers as well as Llama Llama Mad At Mama read aloud by Anna Dewdney.
Weaver718 has several videos of favorite children’s books, as well as many, many others.
Do you have a favorite website or YouTube channel where readers share children’s books aloud? Please leave a comment and let us know.
And thank you to Karen for leaving the comment that inspired this post.