Nonprofit Aims to Provide Students With Audiobooks

Teaching young children to read can already be challenging enough—but when learning differences and dyslexia are factors, it’s helpful to have a new tool or two.

And it’s with that mindset that Learning Ally is launching its Great Reading Games this month  (opens in a new tab). The nonprofit’s annual learning event will provide students and teachers with access to tens of thousands of human-read audiobooks  (opens in a new tab) that aim to tell a good story while also motivating students who struggle to read by helping them succeed in school and beyond.

“Students who struggle to read are often intellectually bright, but have difficulty keeping up with grade-level assignments due to a learning disability,” said Terrie Noland, Learning Ally’s vice president of educator initiatives, in a news release  (opens in a new tab). “The Great Reading Games gives these students the freedom to listen, learn and become immersed in a good book without frustration, and be rewarded for their efforts.”

The seven-week event, which ties into the National Education Association’s Read Across America  (opens in a new tab) event, also has a robust analytics-driven lesson plan element for educators that allows teachers to monitor progress of students in real time. The program also comes with the promise of prizes, such as Chromebooks and headphones. To finish the event, the nonprofit will host a webinar with popular children’s author Kwame Alexander.

But the event isn’t just about fun, games, and big names—the group says that the endeavor shows results and can help boost standardized test scores and was credited with helping a Texas school  (opens in a new tab) assist 97 percent of its dyslexic students in meeting or exceeding expectations on the Texas Reading STAAR, a standardized reading test, last year.

(FatCamera/E+/Getty Images Plus)