Summer Reading with Bookshare: Smart Speakers and Human-Narrated Audiobooks

Summer is full of hot lazy days perfect for sitting with your toes in the sand and fingers on a book! Bookshare is an absolute must for summer reading - TVIs, make sure that your students leave school with downloaded favorites and knowledge on how to access more books throughout the summer. Access to unlimited books will entertain kids throughout the summer, creating voracious readers!

Summer Book Lists

Need reading suggestions? Check out Bookshare's handpicked Summer Readings lists:

• Kids Summer Book Lists (ages 5-10)
• Middle Grades Summer Book Lists (ages 8-12)
• Young Adults Summer Book Lists (ages 13-18)
• Adults Summer Book Lists 

Human-Narrated Audiobooks (Beta)

Your students all use Bookshare . . . but are you aware of the new Bookshare options? Audiobooks are popular, hands-free method of accessing enthralling stories. Bookshare is now offering human-narrated audio books read by actors, authors and celebrities.

Check out these human-narrated audiobooks:

• Kid Audiobooks
• Teen Audiobooks
• Adult Audiobooks

Books on Smart Speakers

What about students who are not able to take their school device home for the summer? Bookshare books can now be accessed on Smart Speakers. After enabling the Bookshare Reader Skill on any Alexa-enabled device, simply say, "Alexa, open Bookshare".

Introducing Bookshare Reader for Smart Devices video:

Instructions for Smart Speakers

Auditory Reading Speed

During the summer, encourage students to be "speed demons" who rip through book after book! It's easy to increase the speaking rate on-the-fly with Alexa, simply say, "Alexa, read faster." Want to know your reading speed? Ask Alexa. Reading speeds range from 50% to 300%. You can also dictate the desired reading speed, "Alexa, read at 150%".

Just like learning to ride a bike, play an instrument or playing a sport - it takes dedicated time to improve. Increasing auditory reading speed is similar; students will improve quickly with practice multiple times a week. Bump up the reading speed and take off! See Auditory Speed Reading: From a TSVI's Perspective for a proven method to help students increase auditory reading speeds.

Resources

• Bookshare's Summer of Audio 2022 
• Bookshare's list of preferred tools (apps) used to access Bookshare books