When I first started listening to audiobooks, I felt a bit like I was cheating – I wasn’t sitting down and dedicating time to read, I was listening whenever I could. But gradually, I came to realise how beneficial this was for me. As my life got busier and busier, I was still able to have the time with books that I wanted to read, just in a different way.

Reading through Dahl’s article (2016), it was quite refreshing to learn that the science behind it looks at the decoding of information which becomes automatic by approximately fifth grade. This means that the difference between reading and listening to a book becomes marginal, suggesting that listening to audiobooks is something we should be offering to students.

The students that I work with use technology differently to myself and my colleagues. They find it difficult to be separated from their phones, but primarily use them for social media and skimming through information. As such, if we implemented ebooks, I do not think they would be taken up by students with enthusiasm. Their phones are used for other purposes (generally speaking) and many students do not have other devices they could use.

Through all of these thoughts, I think the best bet for the students at my school would be audiobooks. If they could access them through their phones (and their ever-present headphones) then it might be a way to engage them with some literature that they otherwise would not engage with.

References

Dahl, M. (2016, August 10). To your brain, listening to a book is pretty much the same as reading it. The cut. https://www.thecut.com/2016/08/listening-to-a-book-instead-of-reading-isnt-cheating.html