Nothing beats reading a good book, but sometimes you are not able to pick up a tangible book and read it to your child. Here are some FREE resources that I have found that have many of the classic children’s stories for free without a lot of hassle to download them.
I like letting my children listen to audio books because it slows them down a bit so they can tune in a listen closely. It also seems to help relax them and help them take notice of the actual words that are being said.
1. Librivox.org – The books in their collection are in the public domain (published before 1923) and free to download. Volunteers read the books and and have a variety of accents from around the world. You can volunteer to read as well. I started listening to their recordings about 4 years ago, and the quality is very good, the readers are also great to listen to, but all of a book’s chapters may not be read by the same person. The language the books were written in are not modern so some words may not be favored in our everyday language, but it makes for a great discussion lesson to start between you and your child.
2. Books Should Be Free – This site has lots of different titles for children, many of which I enjoyed when I was a child. I like this site because it is easy to download the audiobooks and the books are well organized by genre.
3. Open Culture – This site is great because it has more than just audio books, but you need to have a book or author in mind when searching for a specific genre. Overall, the site is a great free resource for online classes, movies, textbooks, ebooks, language lessons, and more.
4. Project Gutenburg – This site is unique compared to the others mentioned because it also includes books that are read by computers. I am not that fond of the computer readings because I prefer a conversational tone, but they also have some books that are read by humans.
5. Learn out Loud.com – This site has a lot of different options. The site is organized and they have more modern options. However all audiobooks are not free. They have a free section which I have linked to.
I recommend that you always listen with your child/children to explain and dialog about things they hear. If you listen to any titles, please come back and share which ones you enjoy.