Episode 151: From Storytime to Science — How Kids’ Podcasts Boost Listening, Curiosity, and Family Learning

What if the easiest way to boost your child’s curiosity, listening skills, and confidence didn’t involve a screen at all? I dive into the world of children’s podcasts—why they work, how to use them at home and in class, and what the research says about attention, comprehension, and family learning. From science explainers driven by kids’ questions to short, story-rich episodes that fit into busy routines, audio turns car rides and bedtime into moments that matter.

I share practical strategies for parents and educators: how to pick age-appropriate shows, the ideal episode length for younger versus older children, and simple prompts that help kids transfer what they hear into action—drawing, experiments, and teach-backs. You’ll hear about Brains On! as a model for inquiry and representation in STEM, plus PBS Kids options like The Plate Show, Molly of Denali, Keyshawn Solves It, and Work It Out Wombats! that nurture empathy, responsibility, and cultural awareness while building vocabulary and background knowledge.

For classrooms, I unpack two powerful pathways: podcast listening to anchor units in science, social studies, literacy, and math; and student production to strengthen research, writing, and presentation while elevating diverse voices. I outline a lightweight workflow for creating short, standards-aligned audio and a critical literacy lens that helps teens analyze who speaks, who’s missing, and how language shapes power. Along the way, I spotlight findings on low-income families’ engagement with audio and why the medium’s flexibility fosters intergenerational learning and equitable access.

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Chapters

• 1:20 Host Intro & Mission
• 3:54 Why Podcasts for Kids
• 5:38 Tech Readiness in Early Childhood
• 6:59 Podcasts as Learning Media
• 9:58 Listening Skills & Learning Styles
• 12:43 Engagement, Interactivity, Outcomes
• 16:33 Family Co‑Learning With Audio
• 20:39 Low‑Income Families Study Findings
• 25:17 Spotlight: Brains On! Science Podcast
• 29:48 Critical Literacy & Democracy Projects
• 34:42 Critical Media Literacy in High School
• 38:24 Choosing & Making Classroom Podcasts

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:36

Welcome to another episode of K-12 Public Education Insights, Empowering Parents of Color Podcast. The podcast that converges at the intersection of educational research and parental actions. It's about making the trends, topics, and theories in public education understandable so that you can implement them into practical, actionable strategies that work for your children. My name is Dr. Kim J. Fields, former corporate manager, turned education researcher, and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with school educators and administrators, as well as experiencing the microaggressions that I faced as an African-American mom raising my two kids who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. Once I gained the information and the insights that I needed, I was then equipped to be able to successfully support my children in their educational progress. This battle-tested experience is what I provide as action steps for you to take. It's like enjoying a bowl of educational research with a sprinkling of motherwood wisdom on top. If you're looking to find out more about the current information and issues in education that could affect you or your children, and the action steps you can take to give your children the advantages they need, then you're in the right place. Thanks for tuning in today. I know that staying informed about K-12 public education trends and topics is important to you, so keep listening. Give me 30 minutes or less, and I'll provide insights on the latest trends, issues, and topics pertaining to this constantly evolving K-12 public education environment. Does learning only come from reading books? No. There are numerous ways to gain knowledge, and most of the current formats involve the use of technology. Why is this? One reason is that the number of children who read for pleasure is decreasing, especially for children between the ages of eight and nine. Well, enter podcasts. You enjoy podcasts, right? But did you know that young children, as well as older children, also enjoy listening to podcasts? Many even enjoy creating podcasts as a learning project in the classroom. Podcasts can be an effective learning tool in subjects such as math, science, social studies, language, and reading. Listening to podcasts sharpens children's listening skills and builds critical thinking skills. I discuss the benefits of listening to and creating podcasts as learning tools in the classroom on this episode. I also provide suggestions and recommendations for podcasts for your children to listen to at home or in the car as part of their out of school academic enrichment. Let's gain some insight on this. Many students are already engaged with digital technologies when they first step into early childhood classrooms. Children as young as three years old are developing the skills to independently use computers, digital cameras, MP3 players, and numerous other technological gadgets. This situation challenges teachers to create effective and developmentally appropriate learning experiences that optimize young children's talents and interests so that they can actively share in the learning process. Podcasting can be used to create an enthusiastic and inspiring instructional environment. Although technology is most often heralded as an intrinsic efficiency, the process of using technology to create a text is full of opportunities to learn new information, create and distribute knowledge, and engage in identity work. One article explored how the production of a podcast offered students opportunities to engage in sophisticated research practices and draw upon their cultural resources in ways that are not possible through traditionally print-centric texts. Using the production of a podcast series in a diverse urban second grade classroom, this article provided insights into not only podcast creation with young learners, but also into the intense and meaningful literacy work possible during their production. Educational technology, ranging from ebooks to videos, offers educators many options to present course materials, illicit student interaction, and enhance course design and assessment transparency. For example, using audio technology in the classroom can help gain and focus learners' attention on appropriate information and engage them as well as sustain their interests over time. Additionally, giving learners access to audio files outside the classroom could offer flexibility and address the needs of learners with different learning styles. One common categorization used to classify learning styles is the visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learning styles model. Visual learners can learn effectively when they see the materials. Auditory learners like to hear the material while kinesthetic learners are those who learn best by doing. It has also been suggested that this model be extended to include read and write as a fourth type of learning style. Of the different learning styles, it's been estimated that approximately 25% of learners are auditory learners. As I've stated before, there is no indication of better academic achievement among students with specific learning styles. It should be noted that learning styles are not abilities, but rather a preference or a tendency as to an approach to learn. Thus, students can learn with methods not consistent with their learning style, but will show a preference for methods that are consistent with their learning style. In fact, when auditory learners are given access to auditory learning content, it's been shown that they also use it more frequently. Listening skills are developed in children before they can speak, read, and write. It's necessary to use innovative and creative learning media to improve students' listening skills. Learning media is a teaching strategy that uses innovative learning tools to achieve the intended learning outcomes. It turns out that technology-based learning media positively influences students' listening abilities. Using technology-based learning media during the learning process enhances students' enthusiasm and interest in learning. Technology-based learning media include podcasts, animated videos or podcasts, and audiovisual materials. The observable outcomes of using learning media include increased student interactivity and improved understanding of a broader and deeper context as it relates to lesson concepts. The primary function of learning media is to serve as a support tool in the teaching process. When podcasts are used as learning media tools, students seem enthusiastic and excited. Students participate more actively and show higher interest in learning when the educational media used are more engaging and interactive. Therefore, their listening skills improve. Additionally, students learn to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information. In other words, students become more critical of the material presented, and this critical thinking is crucial for developing better listening skills. One of the challenges of utilizing technology-based learning media is for teachers to prepare for learning with these tools. This process can take a significant amount of time, especially if teachers have to create custom content or adaptive learning materials. This can put additional pressure on teachers who may already have a reasonably high workload. Over the past 10 years, an increasing number of children have listened to podcasts, and by some estimates, roughly 46% of children ages 6 to 12 have listened to a podcast. Researchers have studied how adult involvement in children's media use affects their experiences and outcomes. Intergenerational learning, which can result from high-quality joint media engagement, is a reciprocal process where knowledge is shared between children and adults. In this dynamic, children and parents act as co-learners and co-facilitators. Parents and other adults can facilitate this intergenerational learning experience to support children's active engagement with and comprehension of the media by discussing content, asking questions, drawing attention to specific information, and making connections between the media and in this case, a podcast, and everyday life. Podcasts may provide certain advantages for family engagement due to their audio-only format, which can allow families to integrate listening into their daily routines and foster shared experiences. However, research on audio media has focused on affluent families and doesn't typically include the experiences of children in low-income households. Therefore, the need exists for a focus on the appeal and benefits for families in low-income households. A 2025 study by the Education Department Center investigated how 110 families from low-income households with children between the ages of four to eight years old used children's podcasts, including examining features that drove engagement, the types of intergenerational experiences sparked by listening, and the potential benefits of podcasts. The insights from that study indicated that families from low-income households were highly engaged with podcasts, that certain benefits like ease of accessibility and flexibility of podcasts enabled these families to easily incorporate podcast listening into their everyday routines, such as while commuting in the car, at home while cooking dinner, or before bedtime. The insights from this study also revealed that podcasts encouraged family engagement and supported intergenerational learning. And certain podcast design features seemed to resonate with families, like short episodes around five to ten minutes for younger children, those ages four to six year old, and episode lengths of ten to fifteen minutes was an ideal episode length for children seven years old and above. The parents in this study also suggested that their children learned about empathy, responsibility, perseverance, manners, gratitude, respect for others, politeness, and the ability to help others from listening to podcasts such as the Author Podcast, Keishon Solves It, Molly of Denali, and Work It Out Wombats. Children also learn about different cultures, including information about other traditions and languages, geographic locations, holidays, folklore, and the names of new foods and ingredients. This was especially noted on the plate show. Additionally, parents in the study indicated that interactivity with the podcast episodes was helpful for their children because it kept their attention and promoted learning transfer since the children could connect with what they heard on an episode to their own lives. Many parents also mentioned that they would like the podcast content to teach their children more about academic learning, especially in science, nature, geography, how things work, and mathematical skills. Overall, the study provided a foundational understanding of how families listen to and benefit from podcasts. One example of a podcast in action is Brains On. Brains On is a science-focused podcast for children ages 5 to 12 and their families produced by American public media. What's unique about this podcast compared to other children's science podcasts is that the content of each episode is based on questions children submit to the show. Each 15 to 30 minute episode features a brains-on host, a child co-host, and a guest scientist or expert. Episodes also use humor and fun to convey information in a kid-friendly way, often using skits, characters, or a song to help explain complex scientific concepts. You can check out this podcast at brainson.org. The episodes all have the following features topics based on kids' questions, engaging hosts, child co hosts, mystery sounds, brains on honor roll, children interviewing scientists, or experts, skits and or songs, and a request for children to share content to the show, whether it's questions, mystery sounds, or topic ideas. The audience for this show is 5 to 12-year-old listeners that are from all 50 states and around the world, tend to be 6 to 9 years old with an average age of 8 years old. They also tend to identify as white and are more likely to be male than female. The listener households tend to be highly educated, with 64% of the households having an adult with a graduate degree. They're also public radio listeners and have at least one adult with a STEM-based job. Multi-generational listening is common. After listening to the podcast, children ages 5 to 12 have to talk to someone about what they heard on the show. What they heard was quoted, was said, or they act out something from the show. They also tend to search for more information about an episode topic, they send something to the show, or they did an activity or experiment that was inspired by an episode they listened to. These are the types of activities that can be inspired by listening to Learning Podcasts. The goal of the show is being met to increase children's science knowledge and provide opportunities for children to learn about science topics that they may not have learned or thought about otherwise. Another goal of the show is to increase children's awareness of the diverse range of people that have jobs in science. This diversity can include various aspects of someone's identity such as gender, race, ethnicity, or age. The show also helps build children's questioning skills by modeling how children can ask their own science questions about the world. I bring this podcast to your attention to raise awareness so that your children can increase the diversity of the show's listeners. Here's an example of a research study that examined the use of podcasting focused on key tenets of critical literacy and how these can support education for democracy. Creating and producing podcasts rooted in critical literacy helps students become active democratic citizens committed to promoting social justice. This podcasting project for critical democracy focused largely on topics of historical oppression, cultivating a sense of community both locally and globally, and offering a forum for students to take action in an effort to modify public consciousness. The project also promoted democratic leadership and rechanneled student self-defeating resistance into transformative resistance. It showed that it is possible for teachers and students to courageously unite and specifically engage in the democratic process to become democratic citizens committed to making their classrooms beacons of light by providing much needed information. Instead of the skill and drill focus of today's educational environment, podcasts offer a creative way to create and disseminate information to students in an engaging and memorable way. The participants in this study included a third-grade class of a quote-unquote failing school based on the Nickleby standards, serving a racially diverse student body, 90% of whom received free or reduced lunch. While the study looked at creating critical literacy to help students become more active democratic citizens, a deeper project could be undertaken for students in middle school. Students who are creating and changing media content are considered to be actively involved in participatory cultures. A participatory culture is defined as a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for sharing and creating one's creations, and some type of informal mentorship like a teacher, whereby what is known by the more experienced is passed along to the novices. Participatory cultures offer opportunities for peer-to-peer learning, diversity and cultural expression, development of workplace skills, and a more empowered notion of citizenship. Another study explored the instructional implications of using podcasts framed by a critical media literacy framework in a high school social justice classroom. This 10-week critical media frame study examined how eight, 16 to 18-year-old students taught synchronously on Zoom, engaged in weekly podcast-based lesson activities, selecting podcast episodes as supplemental course text related to current classroom topics of study, in which they had two episodes per unit topic. Findings from the study indicated that podcasts opened spaces for students to hear various voices, particularly marginalized narratives on controversial topics. Additionally, by engaging in critical media literacy practices, students' own voices were elevated, and students questioned the role of texts in their understanding of the world around them. These findings are of particular value to educators looking to understand the classroom implications of critical media literacy practices and who want to provide counterhegemonic narratives in their classrooms. A critical literacy framework is where a teacher and students ask complicated questions about the relationship between language and power, people and lifestyle, morality and ethics, who is advantaged by the way things are, and who is disadvantaged. For example, critical literacy framework provides students and teachers with a way to deconstruct and reconstruct inequities that they discover in textbooks that they interact with in their daily lives. In the classroom, a teacher could ask the students what they think about the text reading assignment for the day, and could further the conversation with questions about the realities that were demonstrated in the text. Questions for the students to think about and discuss could be number one, what do the writers say about the characters in the text that you read? Number two, if you knew about these issues that were presented from reading the text, how would your perspective change? Three, how does the information presented affect your family or your local community? And four, what can you personally do to communicate what you learned to a broader audience? These types of questions encourage students to consider the realities that are presented as well as those not presented in the text. As the students relate the ideas of the content presented from the text to their personal realities, they discover there are multiple ways to express what they have learned. Podcasting in the classroom not only produces numerous literacies, it also creates the opportunity for negotiating identities, developing social consciousness by understanding the perspectives of others, and developing the students' analytical skills. The cultural backgrounds of the students are central to the tenets of critical literacy. This means that student experiences, activities, and curriculum give rise to the issues and topics for discussion and what each student saw as important in their lives and their communities. This helps to develop a critical curriculum that allows for social issues, civic issues, and issues of equity to be authentically and purposefully addressed. In education, choosing the right podcasts for the classroom, whether they are created or consumed, means evaluating the content to make sure it meets school and community standards. Creating a podcast is not only about technology awareness, it's also about skill building. When producing a podcast as an enhancement of other classroom curriculum resources, teachers need to ensure that the content presented is factual and aligned with their classroom and district's goals and objectives, that it meets curriculum standards, and that the information doesn't confuse learners. The podcasts that are produced in the classroom setting can be shared with the class, with other students at the school, and with a wider community. I have to say that conducting the research on this topic for this week's episode has sparked me to come up with a couple of program ideas for teaching educators how to create and utilize podcasts for a couple of specific topics in middle school and high school classrooms. I'm excited about working on this in the background, and I'll keep you updated as I move forward on this. So, what can you do with the information I just shared? Here are the action steps you can take regarding podcasts as a learning tool. Reading confers significant benefits to children in both social and academic domains. However, despite the rising popularity of audiobooks and podcasts, research on children's listening to spoken stories remains in its infancy. In a recent study, 52 parents of children aged 8 to 13 completed an online survey that asked about their children's listening habits. Results showed that 74% of children listened to spoken stories. With the vast majority listening to these stories one to two times per week. While the survey revealed children are engaging with both podcasts and audiobooks, being read aloud to continues to be the most popular format for story listening in this age group. Having your children listen to podcasts is a great way to reinforce their listening skills, critical thinking skills, and creative skills. Including this as a part of your at-home daily learning exercises is simple and easy enough to do, and it takes very little time. At the most, 5 to 15 minutes. It's something that you and your child can do together, and it certainly beats sticking a screen in front of your child. Just so you know, PBS Kids has been developing podcasts to accompany popular children's series such as Author, Molly of Denali, and Work It Out Wombats. Podcasts have already been developed for The Plate Show, The Author Show, Jamming on the Job, and Keishon Solves It. Be sure to listen to these short podcast episodes with your children since this helps to increase their learning and engagement while learning new concepts. It's also most helpful that you discuss or ask questions to spark conversations with your children about the situations that were presented in the podcast episode. This can lead to follow-on activities like play inspired from the podcast episode, further research on the topics discussed, and arts and crafts like drawing a picture or pretend play based on an episode that they listen to. You know your children best, so whatever methods that you use to keep them engaged enough to love learning, use it. Even podcasts. Here are this episode's takeaways. Over the past 10 years, an increasing number of children have listened to podcasts, and by some estimates, roughly 46% of children ages 6 to 12 have listened to a podcast. Many students are already engaged with digital technologies when they first step into early childhood classrooms. Children as young as three years old are developing the skills to independently use computers, digital cameras, MP3 players, and numerous other technological gadgets. This situation challenges teachers to create effective and developmentally appropriate learning experiences that optimize young children's talents and interests so that they can actively share in the learning process. Podcasting can be used to create an enthusiastic and inspiring instructional environment. Listening skills are developed in children before they can speak, read, and write. It's necessary to use innovative and creative learning media to improve students' listening skills. Using technology-based learning media during the learning process enhances students' enthusiasm and interest in learning. Technology-based learning media include podcasts, animated videos or vodcasts, and audiovisual materials. The observable outcomes of using these learning media include increased student interactivity and improved understanding of a broader and deeper context as it relates to lesson concepts. Researchers have studied how adult involvement in children's media use affects their experiences and outcomes. Intergenerational learning, which can result from high quality joint media engagement, is a reciprocal process where knowledge is shared between children and adults. In this dynamic, children and parents act as co-learners and co-facilitators. Parents and other adults can facilitate this intergenerational learning experience to support children's active engagement with and comprehension of media by discussing content, asking questions, drawing attention to specific information, and making connections between the media, in this case, a podcast, and everyday life. What's been your experience with using podcasts as a learning tool? Let me know by leaving a text comment on my podcast website, k12educationinsights.buzzsprout.com. Here's how you can leave a text comment. Go to the episode description page and click on Send Me a Text Message link. Again, it's K12Education Insights.buzzsprout.com. If you enjoyed this episode, why not listen to another episode from my library? It can take as little as 15 minutes of your day. And remember, new episodes come out every Tuesday. And before I forget, would you do me a favor? Go online right now and share this episode with one friend who you think will love it. Thanks for listening today. Be sure to come back for more insights on K 12 educational topics that could impact you and your children. Until next time, learn something new every day.