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Reading with your children is extremely important! For young children, hearing stories helps develop several important concepts. It can promote language development, listening skills, vocabulary, and its a great bonding time. Technology can also play a part in this. With the use of tools like leap frog learners, story telling podcasts and websites, and stories on CD children can bring that positive reading experience you have helped them develop into the classroom, and also find new stories that they'd like to share with you at home.

3 Concerns for using this technology:

1. Children may not feel the need to actually learn to read when they can hear the stories. 2. The technologies may not be available at home to use with families. 3. It's more difficult to monitor the stories children are listening to.

Though these are valid concerns, children will still develop reading skills through leap frog learners and listening to stories if we use the technologies as an additional tool and not as a primary method of teaching reading. The technologies may not be available at home, but in general, public libraries will have computers that children can use to listen to stories with families, and the school may even make time where children and families can come together at the school to share in these experiences. As for monitoring the stories, by previewing certain sites and leaving them in the favorites list for children, we can give children positive choices that we have already screened to make sure that they have an appropriate reading experience.

3 ideas for using this technology:

1. Creating a listening center in your classroom and home with stories on CD and podcasts. 2. Introducing children to alliteration and rhyme 3. Creating a family storytelling time to get together and listen to a story together

These are some links to outside websites with information on reading with children, and some of the technologies listed.

1. This website tells about the importance of reading to your children. http://www.educationalgateway.com/reading-to-children/index.html

2. This website is about the importance of reading aloud http://www.littleonesreadingresource.com/childrens-stories.html

3. This website has storytelling podcasts for children http://storynory.com/

4. These are mother goose nursery rhyme podcasts http://www.childrenstory.info/mothergooserhymespodcasts.html

5. This is the leap frog learning website's parents page with hot topics in reading and much more http://www.leapfrog.com/en/leapfrog_parents.html

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