Scholastic audiobooks: Are they worth it?

Scholastic audiobooks can be a great alternative way for kids and adults to enjoy a popular library of books by listening, rather than reading.

Today, there are numerous publishers of children’s books for Kindles and iPads. Yet, not many are on the level of Scholastic. Over the years, they have been providing great help to teachers looking to take their pupils onto the right path. They also make reading and learning a fun and memorable experience for youngsters.

Of course, not all of their books are in physical form with hardcovers. Scholastic has a myriad of audiobooks, from pre-K material to bestsellers and young adult titles. But regardless of their offer, some parents still question the quality of audiobooks. Moreover, they wonder what to do if the title they’re looking for isn’t available.

In the following few paragraphs, we’ll take you through the ins and outs of Scholastic and their audiobooks. We’ll also explain how to turn any physical or digital book into a full-on audio one that your kid will love and cherish. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the wonderful world of Scholastic and audiobooks.

What is Scholastic?

You’d have to be living under a rock not to know who Clifford the Big Red Dog is. Well, aside from being your kid’s favorite juvenile fiction doggo, he’s the official mascot of the world’s leading children’s book publisher — Scholastic.

Scholastic is one of those companies that’s favorite among teachers, parents, as well as young students. The reason is simple. The New York City-based publisher publishes the best creative material to help the mentioned achieve their education goals.

About Scholastic audiobooks

When it comes to Scholastic’s audio titles, there are over 200 of them currently available. These range from read-along books for ages 3 to 8 to unabridged ones for middle school students and fans of young adult fiction.

Scholastic offers kids’ favorite novels, Captain Underpants, You Should See Me in a Crown, and Jessica Khoury’s Skyborn series. Furthermore, Suzanne Collins’ classics The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and The Ballad of Songbirds are also available.

Other Scholastic titles include Alan Gratz’s full collection, including Two Degrees and Refugee, Tui T. Sutherland’s Wings of Fire, and Jennifer A. Nielsen’s Rescue. You can also find Dav Pilkey’s Dragons and Dragonets and Mlynowski’s Whatever After series.

To enjoy any of them, you just need to head over to Scholastic’s web page and make a purchase. Some of these come as Audio CDs, while others are ready for downloading or online listening immediately after checkout.

Benefits of audiobooks

Audiobooks aren’t just for people who enjoy listening more than they do reading. In fact, it’s not about them at all. Books that come with read-along CDs are pretty useful for overcoming various learning difficulties, including dyslexia or ADHD.

Some studies suggest that audiobooks more than double your reading accuracy. Aside from that, you can improve your reading speed, while enlarging your vocabulary and improving fluency. But that’s not all.

Audiobooks are great for teaching young kids and foreign students proper pronunciation. They can also help people better comprehend what they’ve just read, which is a common problem for young students or people with dyslexia.

What to do if Scholastic doesn’t have your book title as an audiobook

Despite Scholastic’s great offer of book titles, there are still many missing from their collection. And that’s okay. After all, you can’t have it all in one place. But what to do if the title that your kid needs isn’t available at their site? Firstly — you shouldn’t despair. There’s always a way, and we’re here to introduce you to it.

Have you ever heard of text-to-speech (TTS) technology? It’s a high-end way of turning digital text into speech, making everything from emails to your personal writing into an audiobook. All you need to do is find a digital copy of the book and turn it into audio.

There are numerous TTS tools out there. Yet, not all of them are worthy. Some lack this, while others don’t have that. Moreover, the one you like might not be available for your device or operating system. But, hey! There’s always Speechify.

Recommended TTS app: Speechify

Speechify is the world’s leading text-to-speech tool. It’s based on its three main components — optical character recognition (OCR), artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning. These three allow you to turn pretty much any writing into audio. And when we say any, we also mean snapping photos of text that Speechify will recognize and read aloud.

Speechify’s main goal is to help people who suffer from learning disabilities. The most common one is dyslexia or ADD, which makes it almost impossible for people to read something and comprehend it. Then again, you can also use it to turn your favorite hardcover book into an audio one and listen to it while you take a drive or walk.

Unlike most others, Speechify is available on both iOS and Android platforms. Then again, if you want to use it on your PC or Mac, you can add it to your Google Chrome web browser as a plug-in. Once you do so, turning your kid’s favorite graphic novel into an audio comic will be easy as one, two, three.

How to get started with Speechify

First, you need to determine what version of Speechify is for you. If you’re using an iPhone, you can download the app through Apple’s App Store, or if you’re an Android user, get it on Google Play Store. Of course, for a computer, you can Google Speechify and add it to Google Chrome as a plug-in.

Regardless of the platform, you can try a free 3-day trial and see how Speechify works before purchasing. Speechify will ask you a couple of things before setting itself up and providing you with its services. You can choose the voice and reading speed, as well as tune it to your preference. It’s as simple as that.