Why Listening to Audiobooks is Beneficial for Your Students… and You
Many people, teachers included, have an aversion to audiobooks. For some, there is a deep seated belief that listening to audiobooks is “cheating.” While there are many benefits to reading text, there are also plenty of benefits for allowing your students to listen to audio versions of the text they are reading. For our most reluctant readers, opening up the door to audiobooks can be a game changer for their reading lives.
Repeat after me: Listening to audiobooks is NOT cheating. There is a reason that audiobooks are the fastest growing book format since 2013. Matthew Traxler, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis states that “most psycholinguists (they study language the psychological and neurobiological aspects that allow humans to process language) agree that the “mental machinery” involved in the higher-level understanding of a narrative, plot, and so on, is the same regardless of how you consume the book.”
There are two fundamental processes that contribute to reading: decoding and language processing. Decoding is when we have to figure out words from print. Language processing is the same mental process you use for oral language. The two work together. Since reading is a “newer” mental process it must “piggy-back” on mental processes that have already existed. Spoken language is one of those processes. So, with that said reading a book is a lot like listening to one…except reading a book requires decoding, while listening does not.
If your goal for reading during class or after school is purely to help students practice their decoding skills, having them read print is the best option. However, if your goal for having students read is to expand their reading skills in questioning, inferencing, visualizing, determining importance, and building their schema, allowing students to listen to audiobooks will do the trick as well. There are a few great programs that many schools already have in place in order for students to listen to audiobooks. Learning Aly is a great program that has students both read and listen to the audio version of a book. Learning Aly is awesome for your dyslexic readers, struggling readers, or reluctant readers. Another option is to have your students use Sora, which is the school library version of Libby. Last, is Epic!
Once you open your mind to audiobooks, your students’ time for reading will expand exponentially. Those students that find themselves overbooked with after school activities like sports, tutors, and other classes, can still find time to read. While commuting to and from those after school activities, (or school), students can be listening to their audiobook. Better yet, they can listen along with their parent. Then, they can have meaningful conversations about the books they are reading (win-win!). One of my biggest recommendations during parent-teacher conferences for my struggling readers, reluctant readers, or non-readers is listening to audiobooks with the adult in their life. Those families that do actually take my advice always thank me later. It provides a great way to bond and helps open up conversations between adults and their student, which can be dang hard during those adolescent and teen years.
So, teacher friends, if you want a quick and easy way to improve your students’ reading life, change your mind about audiobooks. Your students will thank you!
Happy Reading!