By Christie Berry, Ed.D.
www.christieberry.com
Audio books are an excellent resource for educators. When used with learners, audio books can help improve cognitive ability, language acquisition, and auditory processing. Books on tape increase interest and motivation in reading and expand interest in new genres. Using verbatim, or unabridged recorded books can provide accessibility to content area reading such as history, math word problems, literature, and science as well as to reading in general for special needs students when they are used in methods appropriate to the individual needs of the child.
Listening to unabridged audio books while following along in the book improves language skills, auditory processing, and contributes to an increase in overall cognitive abilities. Recorded books help a student distinguish between written and spoken language and helps establish a link between them. The world of reading opens up to many students who discover this link or connection. Understanding the connection between the symbol on the page and the sound is a key to unlocking language arts. Once unlocked, improvement in content area understanding, imagination, pronunci ation and inflection, sentence structure, reading levels, vocabulary, and writing skills are consistently evident.
When a child hears the text dramatized by the reader, the result is a deep emotional reaction and involvement with the story. This relationship with the written word helps to develop emotional maturation and improved development of life skills. Better character identification allows students to enter imaginatively and empathetically into the experience of others, thereby developing abilities to decode and understand moral behavior, problem-solving and building relationships. Recorded books allow students to hear language, participate cog nitively with the story, and create mental pictures of the spoken and read word. Books become a source of comfort, rather than distress, as reading becomes easier and leads to greater confidence and knowledge. As a result, communication skills, listening skills, and language development improve.
In a study by Boyle, Rosenberg, et al., they provide quantitative research that investigated the impact of audio textbooks on the learning of students with mild disabilities in grades 9-12. The results were that the students who used the audio books outperformed peers reading traditional textbooks on an outcome based evaluation.1 Hence, the use of audio books provides an increase in overall language and thinking skills as well as many other benefits.
Using audio books while reading along helps create a multi-sensory reading experience that encourages and improves reading ability, vocabulary, and fluency. Listening to language is an essential ingredient in building vocabulary, increasing reading fluency through modeling, and stimulating the imagination, as well as introducing story telling. By increasing language skills, books on tape make reading accessible and more appealing. Students that have been intimidated by reading can now enjoy the written word.
The use of audio books helps to increase the variety of the student’s interest. Reading along with an audio book can peak the interest in reluctant readers, improve interest in reading and motivate delayed readers as well as include them in content area reading. Although not as good as parents reading to students as they read along, audio books provide a key component to listening and providing students with a read-along experience that sparks the interested in the listener/reader. Most of the reluctant or poor readers that had little to no motivation, due to their deficiency, have shown an increas e in interest and motivation. Audio books also provide involvement in content area reading for those students that would not be able to maintain the level of reading involvement necessary in a text book. In the second part of an article written by Chenfeld and Haley, Haley shows how using tools that work for special needs students, specifically books on tape not only benefit the special needs students but also benefit "regular" students by improving interest, motivation, and improved test scores in content area reading.2
Regardless of individual students' learning abilities, emotional maturity, social backgrounds or interests, audio books can create an atmosphere which fosters a collective experience for the listeners. Recorded books go beyond different learning styles and levels, promoting total participation of a group in follow-up discussions, activities, and writing assignments. Students sharing their thoughts and responses to the audio book can add to each other's understanding, leading to an appreciation of other’s viewpoints. Additionally, unabrid ged audio books can:
· introduce students to books above their reading level;
· model good interpretive reading to improve thinking skills;
· teach critical listening skills;
· introduce new genres that students might not otherwise consider;
· introduce new vocabulary, proper names, and locales;
· expose students to unfamiliar dialects, accents, Old English, and old fashioned literary styles;
· provide a read-aloud model3
There's no better tool than audio books for children with special needs. Pronunciations, speech patterns, image correlation, and content comprehension are greatly improved by hearing at the same time as reading. Special needs students are excited to hear their first books - often understanding for the first time the joy of books. At the same time they are gaining a quick understanding of plot, main idea, setting, and they subconsciously understand narrative structure. Audio books provide you with an additional, cutting-edge language arts tool to stimulate improved comprehension regardless of differ ent learning styles and individual needs or abilities.
Research shows that students with specific learning disabilities, such as Dyslexia, show greater improvement when using unabridged audio recordings while reading printed texts. Torgesen, et al.,4 compared the reading comprehension of students with learning disabilities reading printed texts with or without verbatim audio recordings. Reading comprehension was greater for students using the audio recordings. Additional research by Hecker, et al.,5 indicates that post-secondary students with attention disorders took re ading rate and comprehension tests with and without the use of audio books and other reading software that reads the book verbatim and highlights the words as it reads. Results suggest that some students, specifically those with poor baseline reading skills, may read faster and comprehend better when using audio books or the software.
For students who find reading books problematic or students who are not fluent in English, audio books allow exposure to text through aural interpretation and aural/visual connection. Low-functioning students often comprehend more easily by "reading with their ears" than struggling to decode text alone. Audio books offer the competent and avid reader, or gifted students, individualized learning opportunities and expand the volume of their reading.
There are many ways to use unabridged recorded books. To use audio books to expose the listener/reader to new material, genres, vocabulary, fluency modeling, or specific content area information, allow the child to listen to the recorded book as often as possible. It is not necessary to use the written text for the outcomes listed above. To use books on tape to improve reading, language development, to access the printed word, and improve comprehension of written text, have the child read along with the verbatim recording. A chapter or two each day will provide the frequency, intensity and duration necessary to improve reading skills. It will be beneficial to use a place card or book mark to hold under the line being read or a word card to move along to highlight the word being read. A word card can be made easily by cutting a notch on the edge of the place card or book mark that will frame the word as the child moves the card along with the recording. A word card highlights the word being read and blocks out the other words to limit confusion, identify the specific word being read, and creates a relationship between the spoken and written word. Following along pointing to each word with a finger also provides a ‘highlighting’ effect.
Another option for audio books is to download e-books and use a text reader. Most computers have Microsoft’s text reader or you can download it from the internet. One of the best free text readers is Read Please a free online download that allows you to adjust the reading speed as well as the sound of the voice that is reading. The program highlights the word being read and provides the multi-sensory application necessary for print/word connection. There are also talking-books for the computer or Children’s Storybooks Online that provide a wonderful option for click-a-word talking books.
However audio books are used they are an added bonus to the reading experience and improve learning, reading, language, understanding, interest, vocabulary, behavior, relationship, story telling, motivation, emotional development, fluency, comprehension… and the list goes on and on. Of course, reading aloud with each other is the best way to share the reading experience; recorded books provide an alternative and allow the listeners to immerse themselves in the story without stumbling over the reading process itself. Verbatim, or unabridged recordings, are a must when reading along and give a wonderful source of a multi-sensory intervention not only for special learners, but all learners . Above all, keep reading with your ears!
Resources:
G. A. Henty books on tape (Historical Novels)
Blackstone Audiobooks
Books on Tape
Recorded Books
Downloadable Audiobooks
Simply Audiobooks
Read Please text reader
Children’s Storybooks Online
Free Books
University of Virginia E-Text Library
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/
Children’s Ebooks
www.domokos.com/freeebooks.html
Notes:
1Boyle, E. A., Rosenberg, M. S., Connelly, V. J., Washburn, S. G., Brinckerhoff, L. C., & Banerjee, M. (2003). Effects of audio texts on the acquisition of secondary-level content by students with mild disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 26(3), 203-214.
2Chenfeld, M.B., Haley, V. C. (2005). Letter Writing and Book Listening: Advice from Special Education Teachers. Voices from the Middle, 12(4), 21-24.
3Johnson, Denise (2003), Audiobooks: Ear-resistable! Reading Online, International Reading Association, 6(8) available at www.readingonline.org
4Torgesen, J. K., Dahlem, W. E., & Greenstein, J. (1987). Using verbatim text recordings to enhance reading comprehension in learning disabled adolescents. Learning Disabilities Focus, 3(1), 30-38.
5Hecker, L., Burns, L., & Elkind, J. (2002). Benefits of assistive reading software for students with attention disorders. Annals of Dyslexia, 52, 243-272.
Baskin, B., & Harris, K. (1995). Heard any good books lately? The case for audiobooks in the secondary classroom. Journal of Reading, 38(5), 372-376.
