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Audiobooks are becoming rapidly more popular as ease of access to them has increased over the past few years. While seeming to be a new phenomenon, in actuality, people have been read to for thousands of years. However, many still fear audiobooks are a lazy person’s version of reading.
Audiobooks actually have several benefits over traditional reading, and new research has come out suggesting that the brain does not make such a large distinction between the two forms of reading as stodgy traditionalists suggest. While audiobooks do offer significant benefits, this does not mean that traditional reading has no place or should be replaced.
Instead, teachers should learn to implement both types of reading in different situations depending on their goals, the student they are working with, and the type of text they are covering.
New Research on Audiobooks
Research out this year actually suggests that there are multiple contexts where audiobooks are better for comprehension of a text when compared with traditional reading of a physical text. The literature review looked at a large number of studies and compared results on a number of factors to see in what situations and for whom audiobooks might be appropriate when compared with traditional reading.
The first of their findings was that the differences found between the two styles of reading were actually quite small in most situations. (Singh and Alexander) This makes sense, as research into how the brain perceives reading has found that the brain processes texts the same whether they are in audio format or read traditionally. (Deniz et al.)
Both types of receptive communication, listening and reading, are processed in the Wernicke’s area of the brain. Despite the different sensory pathways the two types of reading enter via, they all get processed in the same language center of the brain.
This does not mean that both types of reading are exactly the same, however. There were several conditions they found that affected which type of reading was better. One of the main findings was that audiobooks performed at the same level or better than traditional reading when the content of the text was a narrative story rather than expository information.
According to the authors, in “the 10 studies that directly compared audiobooks and print, audiobooks were reported to be at least as effective as print in facilitating comprehension when the texts processed were either narratives or mixed texts”. (Singh and Alexander) This suggests that when reading stories, audio content may be a better option to help students follow along and understand better.
While audiobooks may be better for stories, texts that go over detailed information may be better in paper format. The studies found that, though the difference was very small, students performed better with written texts when the text was not a story and instead was exposition based.
Another area that made a difference in the type of reading was the age of the students. The researchers found that younger students did better with audiobooks, but the difference disappeared as the students aged. This could be because listening to stories is a natural human ability while reading is a less natural human capability that has to be developed over time.
Benefits of Audiobooks
- Audiobooks are more natural for younger children
Based on this new research, audiobooks may be a better choice for helping young students to read and understand stories. Many children are either read or told stories long before they are capable of reading for themselves. Because of this, their brains are more developed to understand stories in this format.
Teachers obviously need to help students to build their reading ability, but when the content of the story is the focus of the lesson rather than reading itself, it may make more sense for the teacher to read aloud or use an audiobook with students, at least up until the end of elementary school.
- Audiobooks are helpful for learning pronunciation
Another group that audiobooks are beneficial for is students who are learning a language. The researchers found that audiobooks help in vocabulary acquisition due to how audiobooks fluently use new words and pronounce them correctly. This helps learners to understand new words better than just seeing them written down.
A study done on 8th graders found that audiobooks were great for improving listening skills and pronunciation in A1 language level students. (Bravo, et al) Even students who are learning in their mother tongue can benefit with the help learning new words, especially if the spelling conventions are as unorthodox as they are in English.
- Useful differentiation for students with dyslexia
Another group of learners who benefit from audiobooks over traditional reading is students with dyslexia. While students with dyslexia should still work on their reading ability as that is an important fundamental skill, there may be times when the content is more important than the reading itself. In these cases, an audiobook will utilize pathways that will help the student to bypass their areas of weakness and learn at a rate more similar to their peers.
Drawbacks to Audiobooks
- Audiobooks require focus.
One of the downsides of an audiobook when compared with traditional reading is that an audiobook requires more focused attention. While students could listen to audiobooks while cleaning, on the bus, or doing any other mindless activity, if they lose focus, the book does not stop and save their place.
Students who lose focus will have to use the “go back 30 seconds” button several times to go back to the last point they remember. With traditional reading, when a student loses focus, the reading stops, but with audiobooks, it continues going until the student realizes they have missed something.
- Audiobooks can not be skimmed or marked up.
Another drawback to audiobooks is their lack of flexibility. With traditional texts, a person can skim the page for a piece of information they are looking for. This is particularly useful for students who are looking for quotes or facts for writing a paper.
When reading a traditional text, when a student comes across a good quote or an important fact, they can highlight, put in a sticky note, or use some other strategy to save that part for later. Audiobooks do not usually have any functionality for saving important parts or marking up the text.
Conclusion
One misconception in the argument between audiobooks and traditional reading is that it must be either one or the other format. Studies actually show that the best results are achieved when students have both formats simultaneously. When students listen to an audiobook, it is best if they follow along using a physical text as well.
Reading and listening at the same time activates two sensory pathways of learning in the brain. This allows two pathways for memories to be triggered and helps students to build both listening and reading skills together. Students can learn pronunciation of difficult words and see proper spelling and grammar conventions which will help them in reading future texts without audio as well as building their writing abilities.
Utilizing both forms of reading at the same time allows for all of the benefits of both styles and circumvents the drawbacks as well. While a student using an audiobook can not mark up their audiobook, they can mark up the physical text they are using to follow along. Following along with the text while the audio plays also helps give a focus point and keeps students from getting distracted while doing other things.
In schools, teachers should encourage and assign both types of reading as both are useful ways to get new information. Audio content is getting more and more popular with podcasts, videos, and audiobooks becoming more widely and freely available. However, much of human knowledge is still in a written format and if students want to access these texts, they will need to be able to focus and read traditionally as well.
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References
Bravo, Hererra M. L. et al, (2022-04). Tesis. Recuperado a partir de http://repositorio.ug.edu.ec/handle/redug/61357
Deniz, Fatma, et al. “The Representation of Semantic Information across Human Cerebral Cortex during Listening versus Reading Is Invariant to Stimulus Modality.” The Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 39, no. 39, 2019, pp. 7722–7736., https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.0675-19.2019.
Singh, Anisha, and Patricia A. Alexander. “Audiobooks, Print, and Comprehension: What We Know and What We Need to Know.” Educational Psychology Review, vol. 34, no. 2, 2022, pp. 677–715., https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-021-09653-2.
