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If you're amongst the many who are filling out forms for extra funding, we see you. We know it's a lot of work on top of your regularly scheduled activities. Sometimes the hardest part is scouring resource websites to find all the information you need to fill out the endless forms appropriately. To help, we've compiled the following short answers to common questions. Our hope is that with just a few tweaks to add in your school or community details, you'll be able to use this information to complete your forms and get a little more time back for yourself. You deserve it!
Resource description
Tales2go is the leading subscription audiobook service for K12 schools, offering instant, unlimited, and simultaneous access to over 14,000 high-interest titles from leading publishers. The catalog spans Pre K through high school, fiction and nonfiction, popular characters and series, classics, and titles in English, Spanish, and French languages. Access is typically granted to all students within a school, for any desktop, laptop or mobile device, and on a year-round basis for use at school and home. Founded by committed entrepreneurs and former educators, the company believes that every student can achieve reading proficiency through repeated exposure to spoken sophisticated words. Many students lack such exposure, which is the basis of vocabulary acquisition and retention.
How is this resource used?
Tales2go is used to develop vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension skills in a rapidly expanding number of schools and districts across the U.S., including White Plains Public Schools, Berkeley USD, Santa Barbara USD, Needham Public Schools, and Heartland AEA. Use varies by grade and classroom, ranging from the school library to history, science, SPED, and language arts teachers. Tales2go is a valued resource in both curricular and supplemental settings, including use as a listening station within a literacy rotation. Access is provided at home on a year-round basis, making Tales2go a great summer slide buster.
What specific problem does this solve?
Most librarians dislike physical audiobook options that require cleaning and batteries and/or acquisition models that require them to purchase individual titles and loan them out one at a time (even in digital form). Tales2go uniquely offers unlimited and simultaneous access to its complete catalog, making it possible for all students in a class, grade, or school to listen to the same title at the same time. The size and breadth of the Tales2go catalog also dramatically increases the number of titles a school can offer within critical subject areas such as multi-cultural and social justice.
How does this resource support teaching?
Most school libraries have <200 audiobooks within their collection (physical or digital). At roughly $3.00 per student per year - less in bulk - Tales2go is an extremely cost-effective resource given the size and quality of its catalog. Rapid adoption of mobile devices has dramatically increased interest in and use of audio products, both audiobooks and podcasts. In fact, global audiobook sales are expected to grow from $3B in 2021 to $15B by 2026. In addition, the pandemic raised the capabilities of schools and parents to operate remotely, in terms of school systems and technology and parent understanding and ability. Tales2go was a particularly useful resource used by students stuck at home, because listening to a story is both a pleasant activity and effective literacy practice. All state standards detail listening and speaking skills.
How does this resource address problems facing education today?
Despite significant investment in physical books in both school and public libraries, there are large "book deserts" within many urban settings. Worse, even when a book is placed within a home or neighboring laundromat - as some notable non-profits spend considerable monies to do - the books go unused because neither the student nor parent can read them. Approximately 53% of students in US schools are low-income. And low-income parents generally are not proficient readers themselves, cannot read in English or are not home to read aloud to their children because they hold numerous jobs. Yes, we'd all prefer it if every parent read aloud to their child in their lap every night. This is a nice thought, but just not realistic. Tales2go offers a pragmatic and cost-effective way for schools, municipalities and early childhood programs to give every child equitable access to spoken sophisticated words read aloud fluently from a large collection of titles that can represent and reflect them, not just a limited assortment of typical classics. Finally, Tales2go works well in either a synchronous or asynchronous setting, at school or home, given the flexibility in licensing options.
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