AUDIOBOOKS AND READING MOTIVATION

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AUDIO BOOKS AND READING MOTIVATION

Abstract

This paper discusses the use of audio books as a reading motivation technique with young reluctant readers, reluctant adolescents, and English language learners. Kylene Beers (18) spent two years visiting several Houston area schools investigating how teachers connect students to reading. She observed students in an elementary school, two middle schools and a ninth-grade campus school. Francisca Goldsmith a librarian at Berkeley Public Library partners with the Berkeley Middle and High School librarians to run a club called Earphone English (Goldsmith, 00) that uses audiobooks in conjunction with booktalks and book discussions with English language learners.

The use of audiobooks with struggling, reluctant, or second language learners is powerful since they act as a scaffold that allows students to read above their actual reading level. This is critical with older students who may still read at a beginner level. While these students must have time to practice reading at their level, they must also have the opportunity to experience the plot structures, themes, and vocabulary of more difficult books. (Beers, 18)

Jim Trelease (001) comes out as a strong supporter for the use of audiobooks with all age groups and English language learners. For adults who are poor readers themselves audiobooks can serve several purposes

v They provide a common ground so that families or classes can listen to literature.

v The narrators are professional and offer a model for correct expression and pacing.

v For long car trips they can serve as peacekeepers as well as entertainment.

Introduction

The subject of audiobooks as a reading motivation technique was chosen by the writer because she had just completed listening to The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King prior to having a topic. It was a six-cassette story with an extremely complicated plot and kept this listener enthralled for days of sitting in traffic from Glen Head to Brooklyn and back again. The writer of this paper is an avid reader who had talked the book up so much so that her friend who does not read for enjoyment/entertainment borrowed the story. Much to her surprise the friend got totally wrapped up in the story as well. Both the writer of this paper and her friend were very disappointed to have the story come to an end and are looking forward to reading/listening to more books on tape and discussing them.

Young Reluctant Readers

Jim Trelease offers us a Madison Avenue formula for reading that can also be applied to the use of books on tape

1. Read to children while they are still young enough to want to imitate what they are seeing and hearing.

. Make sure the readings are interesting and exciting enough to hold their interest while you are building up their imaginations.

. Keep the initial readings short enough to fit their attention spans and gradually lengthen both. (001)

Audiobooks can and will meet all of the above criteria in addition to increasing fluency, enriching vocabulary and improving students reading comprehension. Jim Trelease also discusses the use of books on tape and the impact that spending story time with your child has regardless of the adult readers reading level. It is the message that reading is very important that the child (ren) need to hear not necessarily their parents voice. (Trelease 001) While audiobooks should not be a full-time substitute for story time they are okay at home and in the classroom, and an excellent use for the illiterate or semiliterate parent to encourage and foster a love of reading.

In the article Listen While You Read, Kylene Beers states that Children still learning to read learn much about books, about print conventions, about vocabulary, about plot structures, about decoding from having books read aloud to them. As students get older, hearing text read aloud continues to help increase their decoding and comprehension abilities. Yet as they get older, the amount of time they spend one-on-one with an adult who might read to them decreases. For reading aloud to have important effects, it must take place often, over lots of time. Furthermore, the texts must be interesting to the listener, and often they need to be reread. In large classrooms with children who have a wide range of abilities and interests, a teacher might find enough time to read aloud one book in a class period, but not the multiple books that are needed to stimulate the range of student interests. One way around that problem is to use audiobooks in the classroom. (18)

Reluctant Adolescent Readers

It is this writers theory that through elementary, middle school and even into junior high school the struggling reader still wants to become a reader. Even after leaving school many non-readers want to become readers and would be more likely to becoming readers if the stigma regarding illiteracy were removed. Trelease mentions two studies that focus on the idea of home-run books a home-run book is the book that inspires one to keep reading, it is the book you will always remember, your watershed book so to speak. The avid student reader can name their favorite books, while those that dislike reading felt that it was boring and were not able to name a favorite book. Trelease cites this as yet another reason for the inclusion of sustained silent reading across the grades by saying that you cant hit a homerun if your not in the line-up and you wont be able to find your home-run book if it is not important enough to give you time to do it. (001)

It is this writers belief that the home-run book might also be found on cassette perhaps in conjunction with a book by the non-avid reader if he or she is led there by a persistent, concerned, caring, parent, teacher or librarian. An interview Kylene Beers has with a seventh grade teacher in Houston, proves the point by pairing the so called non-reader with books and books on tape her students reading ability went up, their interest level went up and their confidence in themselves as readers went up. (Beers, 18)

An interview with a former middle school teacher from Colorado brings home the point that the older reluctant reader can indeed be reached and turned into readers. This teacher worked with a very difficult eighth grade class, some students had already had run-ins with the law, two were pregnant and many of them were regular drug and alcohol users. They couldnt do math and all of them hated to read. It was mid-October when at a loss as to how to reach and teach her students she began to read aloud The S'ance by Joan Lowery Nixon fifteen minutes into the story she had them the room was still. She read to her class everyday for that week, the book was finished about halfway through the class on a Friday and the students did something she had never seen them do before, they talked about the book. The following week she did the same thing reading Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan all period everyday and again when she was finished the class began its own spontaneous book discussion, two students even compared the two books. The school librarian led her to the idea of using books on tape and she jumped at the chance to try it out with this difficult class. She had incredible results, by the end of the school year all twenty-three of her students reading levels had gone up by about two grades and all of them had improved attitudes towards reading. Audiobooks had made the difference for those kids. (Beers, 18)

English Language Learners

At Berkeley High School thirteen percent of the student body comes from homes where English is not the first language. A student club partnered by Berkeley High School and the Berkeley Public Library known as Earphone English (Goldsmith, 00) meets weekly. Students encounter opportunities to practice their spoken and aural English skills through book discussions, booktalks and audiobooks. Audiobooks are the heart of the program offering club members the chance to listen to popular titles and hear well-spoken English. In addition they get to read the same titles that their friends with stronger English skills are reading. All this listening leads to lively book discussions about both the audiobooks and conventional books.

Earphone English has helped to make a difference in the club members everyday lives. Teens that practiced their skills by reading to kindergartners over the course of the semester reported that listening to books on tape had improved their oral skills. The proof comes from a group members experience The kids used to play around while I was reading, she said Now theyre quiet and listen to me read. I know how to make my voice do the right things to match the punctuation. (Goldsmith 00) The kindergarten teacher noted that the club members oral reading skills had improved after only one month of listening to audiobooks. As of the May 00 publication of this article in The School Library Journal this program had been in existence for two years. Noted here students dont necessarily want to follow along with the printed text, some like to read the text before or after, some not at all. Members do not all read the same books prior to discussing them either. It turns out that the teens and adults involved in the program booktalk one another and share titles between meetings as well as comparing and contrasting themes, plots and features such as the narrators pace and tone. The club has grown from an original test pilot group of five students to thirty-two high school members and twenty-five middle school members. (00)

Conclusion

The research supports the use of audiobooks for reading motivation with reluctant readers of all ages and for English language learners. In addition research has been done to support the use of audiobooks as a form of reading intervention for the struggling reader or learning disabled reader. Many students with disabilities exhibit problems with reading fluency, text comprehension skills, vocabulary learning and abstract reasoning from text presentations. Educators a re turning to computers and other electronic materials to assist students with reading difficulties. (Castellani & Jeffs, 001) Audiobooks will assist these learners in developing their fluency, vocabulary comprehension and reasoning.

According to Beverly K. Maddox on LM Net, listening comprehension is higher than that of sustained silent reading comprehension. (17) She suggests that slower middle school and junior high school students be given a copy of the book along with the audiocassette. Ms. Maddox states that listening to a good read can hook kids to reading, too and motivate them to read on their own. (17)

The writer of this paper is in full agreement with Ms. Maddox and is quite sure that audiobooks can and will catch and hook the unmotivated reader, the slower reader, and the reluctant reader. Audiobooks should be offered as an option to the English language learner and the young struggling or older reluctant reader so that he/she can participate in book discussions and writing activities without having a book thrust upon them to frustrate them further. It is just possible that without coercion the struggling, reluctant reader or English language learner may be motivated through audiobooks and become an avid reader in time.

Works Cited

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