As a previous first grade teacher and Aunt Neenie to 4 incredible nieces and nephews under 5, it has always been important to me to foster a love of reading at a young age. If all we do is have children read to get better at it, they won’t understand the purpose or the windows that reading can open up to the world around them.
My nieces and nephews are read to every night before bed and surround themselves with books in bed as they fall asleep. They are beginning to read easy readers and have memorized many books, but they also love hearing stories. If they had their way, an adult would be available to read to them all day. An adult isn’t always available to read to a child though and that is where digital books come in handy.
There are many places online where educators and parents can access books; Raz-Kids, Epic!, MagicBlox, Oxford Owl, and Free Kids Books to name a few. Some of these are free, some of them cost money, and some are free to a certain extent.
Most recently, I was introduced to Vooks. Vooks is an online database of books. What makes Vooks different is that they animate the images on each page, read the story out loud, and bold the text on the page as it is being read. The tracking of text is important as students learn to read and the animations bring the stories to life for young readers.
In the Vooks library you will find popular books such as How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? By Jane Yolen and Mark Teague, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault, Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes and many more. You can browse the library by topic or search for specific books. There is also a way to add your favorite books to a list for quick reference. Vooks can be accessed through their website or the app. There is an app for Android, iOS, Amazon Fire TV, and Roku, and it can be casted to your TV through a Chromecast device.
The best part for educators, is for a limited time, you can receive a free year of Vooks access. Simply go to www.vooks.com and click on “promotions” for your teacher appreciation license. If you aren’t an educator, it is still definitely worth the look. Click on “free access” on their website to view free stories.
As Elizabeth Hardwick once said, “The greatest gift is the passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.” Help your children bring what they read to life with this awesome digital resource.
Note from the author: I was not compensated in any way for this blog post on Vooks nor was I asked to review it.
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