My godson Ethan loves the bedtime stories we tell him. He enjoys the narrative, while we enjoy a quiet moment of bonding with him. Parents of young children realise quickly that the words their children repeat are, of course, the ones that they often hear. Children learn to speak the language before they write it, so it makes sense to surround them with sophisticated vocabulary we would like them to use instead of words we wouldn't want them saying. Tales2Go is an award-winning mobile children's audiobook service that streams books, stories and songs from leading publishers from your desktop or mobile devices into your children's hands. There are thousands of name-brand audiobooks available. There's Clifford and Curious Geor ge for the youngest set, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and How to Train Your Dragon for pre-teens, and Gulliver's Travels and Little Women for young adults. The stories are available on the website or directly from the Tales2Go app. Just follow the links to give it a go for 30 days. You can add as many as five devices using the same account. You can search for books by browsing the catalogue by age, grade, title, genre and narrator. If there's a favourite part of the story the children want to go back to or if you have to pause halfway through, just click the bookmark to remember the position or the star icon to save the story as a favourite and come back to it later. We used it with Ethan on our last family road trip and found that 10- to 15-minute short stories worked best. You could use it while driving the children around, during bath time and at bedtime. For parents of struggling readers, listening to the stories with a copy of the book in hand will help them feel in control of learning to read. Audiobooks have been used in classrooms because they help develop fluent reading and speaking skills. Stories also train children to listen, and improve skills that translate beyond language learning - from the patience to listen to and follow instructions to developing appropriate responses in different social situations. Tales2Go has won the Parents' Choice Gold Award, education awards and W3 Awards for outstanding websites and mobile applications. Verdict: It's never too early to get your kids to enjoy listening to the spoken word. Tales2Go is free for 30 days, US$9.99 monthly or US$99.99 annually. Available at tales2go.com or from the iTunes App Store
