MistyMountain Posted March 14, 2015 Share Posted March 14, 2015 Ds interest level far exceeds his reading ability. I like the idea of immersion reading but I don't know much about it but I have seen a few threads on here about it. With Learning Ally do you have to pay for the audiobooks after the membership? Are only certain books immersion? How much is available? What else is out there? I have an iPad. Paying for audiobooks would make it unattainable but I could maybe do a one time yearly fee. I read to him a lot but he would probably listen longer if he had access to audiobooks and I like the idea of him seeing the highlighted text. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butter Posted March 14, 2015 Share Posted March 14, 2015 My dyslexic son listens to audiobooks all the time. We only do immersion reading for books he is reading for school. This has made his reading comprehension level when being read to halfway through 11th grade. His physical reading comprehension level is halfway through 6th grade (this shows an improvement of 2 years in about 15 months... I am sure the immersion reading has helped that along). His comfortable reading level is halfway through 4th grade. (He is 13 and nearing the end of 7th grade.) We use audible for our audiobooks. My husband is a "voracious listener" and already had quite a collection of adiobooks from them before Cameron was even old enough to listen to them. Cameron has a Kindle Fire and he does the immersion reading on that using Kindle books and Audible audiobooks. Many are designed to allow that and you usually get a discount on the audiobook if you buy the Kindle book that goes with it (and I need the Kindle book to read along with him). He is doing early modern this year and most of his Kindle/Audible combos have been 99 cents for a couple dollars because the Kindle book was free and we were just paying for the audiobook. I know nothing about Learning Ally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted March 14, 2015 Share Posted March 14, 2015 With Learning Ally you can access any book in their catalog after you pay the membership fee. Most books are immersion reading (well, highlighting the paragraph read, not the individual word) but some are not. IMHE, novels are more likely to be available for Immersion Reading than textbooks. HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted March 14, 2015 Share Posted March 14, 2015 Before you pay for LA, check your list of what you want and see what formats they have. For some things they only have the audio. I know I'll want/need an ipad for ds eventually, but the immersion reading on the kindle is SO good (and the layout so easy for non-readers to find their stuff) that I went ahead and got him another kindle after he dunked his first. Given the age of your ds and the possibility of things happening, you might consider a kindle. If your library has overdrive or other ebooks, they may check out through amazon. (ours does) When you do that, for the duration of the checkout it's AS IF you owned it! So amazon will offer you the audiobook at the discounted price if you have the ebook version (from your library!). And they may offer you a discounted ebook if you have the audio, don't recall. And yes, audible/amazon discounts a lot of the classics to almost free if you own the (also free) ebook version. They have HUNDREDS of books like this. The kindle ds uses is the hdx. I've bought both of his used on ebay and gotten deals. I'm an apple snob, but I really, really like the kindle for these kids. It's a portable size, so he can keep it with him all day. That way my ipad is for my curriculum I use with him, that kind of thing. The kindle is just his and it's with him all day. And yes, the immersion reading is terrific. It will work with ebooks and audiobooks you get through your library as well. Anyways, I'm saying it's worth considering whether you'd rather spend $65-100 a year for LA or rather have that money into a device and then use it to get cheap/free stuff on amazon. Or of course try getting the cheap/free stuff and your library stuff and using it on the ipad and seeing how far it gets you. How far is your ds in his reading? Barton says not until through level 4, which for us will be a while yet, as we're in 3. So you could punt, spend a month or two or three amassing cheap/free stuff, learning to use the library, then have a sense of what you want. See I'm not sure my ds is going to be keen on the LA readers. He likes the professional readers, kwim? LA uses volunteers, and while the voices might be fine I'm hearing backchannel that they'll switch readers frequently, from chapter to chapter even. With a young child who might be more inclined to be picky, they might just put up their nose at stuff you get with your LA subscription, kwim? Later, with a little more maturity, they might be more grateful. At this age though, kids are just all about the entertainment, lol. We'll do LA eventually. I'm interested in getting him CHOW and I haven't been able to find it elsewhere. Actually, what I REALLY want is BARD/NLS. I just haven't had the time to slow down and file the paperwork. I want to get our psych to do the paperwork for all three services at once, hehe. BARD uses professional readers, and I think ds will be more likely to listen to it. I think he's immature enough he might pass on the LA stuff and avoid it. And isn't BARD free? LA has an android app and you can sideload it onto the kindle. BARD is only ipad. I have an ipad, so it's not a biggee. What I want, eventually, is to get him his own ipad. I'm just watching to see if the pro comes out. I have these dreams of doing our school work on a pro, hehe... Not that I have money to blow on it, but a girl can dream! :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MistyMountain Posted March 14, 2015 Author Share Posted March 14, 2015 I am not sure ds's reading level yet but it isn't quite first grade yet. His interest level is more like the 5th or 6th grade level and can even go higher. He doesn't seem to picky about the audio style and focuses more on content unlike my dd who only likes stuff if it is engaging. He likes both fiction and non fiction. He really likes history and science and loves to read on the topic and for fiction he likes things like Harry Potter, The Rats of Nimh, The Mostly True Adventures of Homer Figg etc. I would love the find History and Science stuff like Joy Hakim. Highlighting the paragraph won't be helpful girl him right now so that is good to know that is what it does. The place I am getting ds tested at is the one place listed for my state listed in Learning Ally so that is good to know. What is BARD? I am just learning what all this is? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pen Posted March 15, 2015 Share Posted March 15, 2015 ETA: At your son's age, I avoided audio texts for fiction because I wanted something for him to look forward to reading, something to want to be able to read, true incentives. Harry Potter and The Lightning Thief sat on the shelf beckoning as an incentive to do the hard work of skills building with dyslexia, because it IS hard work, and if there is nothing to look forward to because the interest level is always out of reach and all the desired books have already been listened to, I am not sure I could have gotten him to really try hard enough to make reading happen. My son's first main audio books were the Story of the World series on CD, which is how I ended up on this website. He listened to that one series over and over, rather than having tons of audio books at that stage. We have used a lot of audiobooks without so much of the immersion reading aspect--that aspect seems to work great for others, but did not for us. However, just audiobooks helps keep plenty of input going at interest level while working on reading at reading level. I suspect that immersion may work better if one keeps the level of the book closer to the current reading level, rather than at the interest level of the child. I think it ends up similar to where a parent can hold a child on lap and read aloud while showing the child where they are in the print, but with a machine to do the reading and showing, and thus could perhaps help if you had a K level reader with immersion. But for learning at interest level, you probably only need and would get benefit from the audio part at this point. Check out what your public library may have in addition to the Learning Ally possibility. Our pub lib. has quite a few CD books on the shelves and more by interlibary loan and yet more by digital download. Audible may be another possibility. Some books are expensive, but not everything is, particularly often not the "classics" which may be only 99 cents or even free, such as this month I think there is a free Fairy Tales book available as Kindle/Audible via Amazon free whispersync of the month book.... I just learned about and got onto this recently with input from others here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Incognito Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 Before you pay for LA, check your list of what you want and see what formats they have. For some things they only have the audio. I know I'll want/need an ipad for ds eventually, but the immersion reading on the kindle is SO good (and the layout so easy for non-readers to find their stuff) that I went ahead and got him another kindle after he dunked his first. Given the age of your ds and the possibility of things happening, you might consider a kindle. If your library has overdrive or other ebooks, they may check out through amazon. (ours does) When you do that, for the duration of the checkout it's AS IF you owned it! So amazon will offer you the audiobook at the discounted price if you have the ebook version (from your library!). And they may offer you a discounted ebook if you have the audio, don't recall. And yes, audible/amazon discounts a lot of the classics to almost free if you own the (also free) ebook version. They have HUNDREDS of books like this. How exactly do you use overdrive with your kindle? I tried to use the Overdrive app with my library and it didn't work. Amazon was actually really nice about it and gave me a credit for the audiobook I was needing for our school stuff, so it solved my problem for the day/week, but I never got the whole thing working (which would save us lots of $$, I think). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butter Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 How exactly do you use overdrive with your kindle? I tried to use the Overdrive app with my library and it didn't work. Amazon was actually really nice about it and gave me a credit for the audiobook I was needing for our school stuff, so it solved my problem for the day/week, but I never got the whole thing working (which would save us lots of $$, I think). Through our library, I search for a book through the on-line catalog, it tells me there is an audiobook or ebook available through Overdrive, click on it, tell it I want to borrow it, and then it asks me which format I want it in. For ebooks, I select Kindle and it sends it to my Amazon account for the period of the rental. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted March 16, 2015 Share Posted March 16, 2015 How exactly do you use overdrive with your kindle? I tried to use the Overdrive app with my library and it didn't work. Amazon was actually really nice about it and gave me a credit for the audiobook I was needing for our school stuff, so it solved my problem for the day/week, but I never got the whole thing working (which would save us lots of $$, I think). For our library I selected the book online on my regular computer (through the library website, which kicks me over to their overdrive/e section), and it did the checkout through amazon. Once I did the checkout on amazon, I think that's right that I said I wanted it on the kindle, and it just auto loaded onto the kindle. Ask your librarian to help you. They'll have staff trained in helping people set up and do ebooks. Just take your device in and they'll walk you through it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaughingCat Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 Just wanted to add that my DD has never liked immersion reading -- she does read along in a regular book with her audible books sometimes though. Not sure if it's something about reading on the Fire or what though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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