BlsdMama Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 I got a membership a few years ago and just never really utilized it much - I have a pretty decent library system and was able to use that extensively. DS is a pretty savvy audiobook listener - he's listened to hundreds of books by now. I know that LA has a large QUANTITY of books, but I've heard in the past that the QUALITY is lacking. Would it be a worthwhile expense to consider again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnthemLights Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 My experience: Bought it......It's been maybe 4 months and I have found less than 10 books that I was looking for. So for me, it wasn't worth it. YMMV, of course. I have had a lot better success with Tales2Go.....much easier interface and even though they don't have nearly the selection, what they have is very good. They also have a free 30 day trial. Maybe something to check into if you haven't yet? Blessings. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kateb Posted August 21, 2016 Share Posted August 21, 2016 We love it. My nine year old son listens and follows along to books daily. Most of the books we have needed have been available on LA. It is a must for us. He tried Bookshare, but he didn't like the computerized voice. It was much harder for him to listen to. All of the books on LA are human voices, which we love. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heathermomster Posted August 21, 2016 Share Posted August 21, 2016 (edited) The poor quality of LA is what put DS off. While listening to audio, there would be up to 5 different readers in one chapter of a text book. DS finds the NE American accent unpleasant to listen to, so overall, the actual readers became too much of a distraction for him. I also started having problems locating specific books through LA by authors like Dorothy Mills, P. Callum, and Sutcliff. When I discovered TTS on kindle e-books, we went that route and then applied to Bookshare using VoiceDream with the Ozzie voice Tyler. We also use Librivox, Gutenberg, and YouTube. For $135 per year and the above mentioned issues, LA lost its utility for us. Eta: All of my son's upper high school texts currently come from Bookshare, and he uses VoiceDream with Immersion sw at an accelerated reading rate. Edited August 22, 2016 by Heathermomster 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted August 21, 2016 Share Posted August 21, 2016 The National Library Service holdings are AMAZING, and dyslexics qualify under print disability. You just get your ped to sign the form and send it in. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliR Posted August 21, 2016 Share Posted August 21, 2016 We have found LA increases in importance when non-fiction is involved. For high school level subjects it has become even more important, and the cost doesn't look bad if balanced against the cost of texts. It is also very easy to skip to a particular page, so 'read pages 500-520' is much easier to do with LA than a regular audiobook. For non-fiction, we think the variety of voices is not a distraction but an asset. A biggie for me is that it is easy, and don't have to think about technology. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnMyOwn Posted August 21, 2016 Share Posted August 21, 2016 (edited) . Edited August 21, 2016 by OnMyOwn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prairiewindmomma Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 We didn't find it worthwhile. We use NLS/Bard, Bookshare, and Audible. (We picked up the History of the ____ World by SWB and a few Apologia books on Audible in addition to a ton of Teaching Courses lectures...we got a monthly membership and utilized credits to keep cost down. We now have the content permanently so I can use it with other kids down the line who are likely to need the help.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie of KY Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 My kids love Learning Ally - use it mostly for Sonlight books and other fun readers right now. The voices bother me, but not my kids. Haven't tried it much yet for textbooks. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest2 Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 (edited) My kids love it. Here it is pretty valuable when reading is quite difficult . I have noticed that as fluency and endurance improve, they are less likely to continue to listen to someone else telling a story, or give information. So after ramping up the endurance about 1-1/2 yers after completion of Bartons 8, it seems like the desire to listen to information/litererature isn't there. I am not sure if that is specific to LA, however, that is when I start hearing complaints about the voices/accents. We have been using LA for mostly leisure and it has preserved my kids love of a good story. It has been a long time since I have tried the other options. Being able to immmediately download something is great. If I had to pay for each selection, I think we might have been too conservative with downloads. I can't seem to find what we want in audio at our library.HTH! Edited August 22, 2016 by Silver Brook 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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