How Audiobooks Have A Powerful Impact On Literacy Development

A lot has been said about what is better, reading from a book or listening to audiobooks. Many do not prefer the idea that listening to audiobooks counts as reading. They prefer kids growing up on the old fashioned way of picking up a physical book to read. Many consider listening to audiobooks as a form of cheating on the actual reading process.

A lot of research and study has been done to understand the power of audiobooks in literacy development. A study conducted by WestEd has great information for parents looking for ways to keep reading skills sharp over the summer months, librarians seeking increased funding for their audiobook collections, educators who need strong statistics for audiobook grants, or teachers planning next year's program. This report is economically and ethnically diverse and shows the impact of audiobooks on vocabulary development and reading achievement for second and third grade students.

An important part of the study is that the researchers focused on just the listening part, with no follow-along-in-the-book or other reading intervention added. The impact of purely listening to the books is noteworthy. Two of the notable findings are that students using audiobooks attained 58% of the annual expected gain in reading achievement in just 10 weeks, putting them 3 months ahead of control students. The study group also outperformed the control group across all measures, by three times in reading comprehension, nearly seven times in second grade vocabulary, and nearly four times in reading motivation.

(http://www.booklistreader.com/2016/04/28/audiobooks/new-research-shows-audiobooks-have-powerful-impact-on-literacy-development/)

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