"A recent study by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop found that 72 percent of the top-selling education apps in the iTunes store target preschool or elementary-age children, a significant increase from 47 percent in 2009. Study results also show that early learning apps for preschoolers and toddlers are the most popular app category and have experienced the greatest market growth."
Today we see many pictures of young children watching or interacting with a screen. One question to ask "is whether interactive screen time can be considered a valid teaching tool for children as young as two and one-half."
All voice actors should be reading aloud for 15 minutes daily for practice anyway, so if you're not doing this already with your kids, you really need to make the time to do it. It also happens to be a great way to test out and practice dialects and characters; your kids are usually more forgiving than the reviewers on Audible and Amazon.
If your grandchildren, nieces or nephews live far away, there's no reason why you can't Skype-read to them...or spend 15 minutes daily recording a book that you can send them when it's completed.
And if you don't have kids in your life, your local library or school would probably love to have a professional voice actor come in and read to students. Here are tips from the SAG Foundations BookPals for reading aloud: http://bookpals.net/ten-tips-for-reading-aloud/
...and they all lived happily ever after!
The proof is in the reading. And making it a daily practice.
We know this, but it bears repeating, and repeating and repeating!!!!