Listen
While You Read
by Kylene Beers
April 1998
Kylene Beers is Lecturer, Department of Library Science at Sam Huston
State University, Houston, TX. She is also co-editor of Info Focus: Understanding
and Creating Middle School Readers (Christopher-Gordon, 1998).
For comprehension, some readers need to see words, and
hear them, simultaneously.
I noticed it right away.
Everyone in the seventh-grade classroom was reading, really reading. No one was
looking around. No one was thumbing through a book. No one was digging through
a backpack, sleeping, doodling, or whispering to a neighbor. No writing notes,
fixing hair, or staring into space. They were reading. All of them, all 32 of
them. Some were reading sports books, a few were reading joke books, most were
reading fiction. About half were reading while listening to cassette tapes.
"Okay, put your books away now," the teacher finally said.
No response. They kept on reading.
"Really. Now. We've got
to move on."
Slowly they put their bookmarks into place,
put their books down, turned off their tape players, and stretched.
"They all read the whole time," I said to the teacher during her break.
"Uh-huh," she replied, not too impressed with my insight.
"I mean they all read the whole time. How'd you get them to do that?"
"Well, I didn't have to convince all of them to read," she said.
"Several of these kids came into my class liking to read. The others, well, I
put them with books that are on tape."
"So they don't read? They
just listen?" I asked.
"Of course they read. But they also hear
the words as they read," she explained. "And they love it."
"Those
kids, do they always listen as they read?"
"Some do. Some just
listen occasionally. It really just depends on their mood."
"And
the result is..." I began.
"The result," she cut in, "is what
you saw. Kids reading. And because they are reading, their reading ability is
going up, their interest is going up, and their confidence in themselves as readers
is going up."
The conversation you just read is a transcription
of a tape from a classroom I observed late in 1996. From then until January 1998,
I repeatedly visited several Houston-area schools-an elementary school, two middle
schools, and one ninth-grade campus school. The point of my visits was to continue
my investigation into how teachers connect students to reading. Not surprisingly,
I found teachers looking to the school librarian for help. Some librarians suggested
audiobooks. Soon I began to understand how certain students were able to connect
to reading through listening. Here's what happened in two other classrooms.
"I want it," the seventh
grader in the English as a Second Language classroom yelled after the teacher
finished talking.
"Me, too."
"I want one."
"I said it first."
"Me, Miss, I want to read it."
The teacher called five students to her desk and gave out copies of Dear Mr.
Henshaw by Beverly Cleary (Dell, 1984). "Okay. After you five finish chapter
four, I want to see a response journal entry from each of you," she said.
They each nodded, took the books, and walked over to the listening
center. Each put on a pair of headphones, opened his or her book, and then one
student punched play on the machine. They listened to the tape while following
along in print.
Meanwhile, another set of five students went to
a second listening station. They each put on headphones and pulled out their copies
of Number the Stars by Lois Lowry (Houghton, 1989). They were about halfway
through the book. Five other students pulled out copies of Betsy Byars's The
Pinballs (HarperCollins, 1977). They began reading, but weren't listening
to the book on tape. A fourth group of five students moved to another corner of
the room, pulled out Hatchet by Gary Paulsen (Bradbury, 1987), and began
responding to what was written on a card the teacher had handed them.
The final group of students, four in this group, all moved to a conference table
near the teacher's desk. She met them there and they all began discussing Soup
and Me by Richard Peck (Knopf, 1975, o.p.). After 15 minutes, the Hatchet group changed places with the Soup and Me group.
Now the Soup and Me group discussed something on a card from the teacher. The other
three groups read and/or listened the entire 30 minutes.
Later,
the teacher and I talked about what I had seen.
"They all wanted
to read Dear Mr. Henshaw," I remarked.
"Well, if you do a read-and-tease,
that always gets them interested. Plus, I had told them that was one of the books
that we have on tape. That always appeals to a certain group."
"Not to everyone?"
"No. Some of the kids don't want to listen and
follow along. They just want to read. That's what you saw one group doing-The
Pinballs group. Those kids really already love to read and they are about
to transition out of this class."
"Transition out?"
"Right. Their English is to the point that they don't need this class. The others
still need support. Listening to the English language is one of the best ways
to improve their vocabulary, their usage, and their comprehension. Just reading
books doesn't help these kids very much. They need to hear the language. So, I
put them with books on tape."
"Are you seeing that listening to
the books. improves reading interest?"
"Sure. More important, because
these kids have got to pass tests, listening to books helps their comprehension.
On days when the kids aren't reading, but are meeting with me so I can ask some
comprehension questions, these kids are getting those questions right. And their
response journals show that they're improving not only what they say, but how
they say it."
One day
last spring a former middle-school teacher from Colorado sat at her
dining room table and explained to me what she did to turn around one class's
negative attitudes toward reading:
"The eighth graders I worked
with the last year I taught were real difficult kids. They couldn't read, couldn't
do math, would just as soon hit you as talk with you. Two were pregnant, many
were in trouble with the law, many were regular drug or alcohol users. The only
thing they had in common was that they all hated to read.
My promise
to myself was that by the end of the year they would like to read and would read
better.
So I bought lots of young adult literature over the summer.
Read all of it so I could talk with the kids. Checked out lots of books for them.
Set my room up as a reading workshop-tables, pillows, lamps, and lots and lots
of books. Well, it was like throwing a party and not having a soul turn up. Having
the books, talking about them-hell, begging them to read didn't do any good.
Finally, by mid-October, when I was wondering why I had ever made myself
that promise and reminding myself of that phrase, "promises are made to be broken," I decided one day not to have them read, but to read to them. So I began reading The Seance by Joan Lowery Nixon (Laurel Leaf, 1981). After about 15 minutes
everyone was still. Everyone was listening. That hadn't happened all year; so,
I read all period.
The next day, I read to them again. For a solid
week I read every day to them. That's all I did, all period. We finished the book
about halfway through the class on Friday and for the rest of the class those
students did something I had never seen them do: They talked about the book. What
they liked, didn't like, didn't understand. The next week, we did the same thing.
This time I read Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan (Laurel Leaf, 1990).
Again, I read to them all week, all period, every day.
Again,
when we finished, they talked about the book. Two students even compared the two
books by discussing which they liked better and why. That day I knew I had found
a way to get kids into books, or at least into the stories that are in books,
but I also knew I couldn't keep reading aloud 55 minutes a day. I was talking
about what was happening in class in the workroom when the librarian suggested
I use books on tape. "Like for the blind?" I -asked her. She then told me about
audiobooks, saying she had some and would order more.
That next
day we gathered up as many tape players and headphone sets as we could find, brought
in the tapes, and brought in multiple copies of books. Now kids could listen and
follow along. That did it. Within about two weeks everyone was listening and reading.
We set aside three days a week to listen and read, one day to write and talk about
what we were reading, and one day for booktalks, so kids would know what to listen
to and read next.
It was incredible. By February some of the kids
were wanting to take the books home at night so they could keep reading to see
what was happening. By the end of that year, all 23 of the kids in that reading
skills class had come up about two grade levels in their reading and all had better
attitudes toward reading. Audiobooks made the difference for those kids."
Good ideas are easy to discover
when you begin to see lots of people using the same idea in several places and
getting great results. And in lots of places I was seeing teachers use audiobooks
in their classrooms as an integral part of the reading program. Plus, I was hearing
city and school librarians tell me that a large part of their circulation came
from audiobooks. In the spring of 1997, I flew to Michigan to speak to the young
adult division of the Michigan Library Association. )While drinking coffee with
librarians from city and county libraries, I casually asked if they had audiobooks
in their libraries.
"Absolutely," was the reply. They then explained
that in some libraries as much as 60 percent of the library's entire circulation
came from audiobooks. "How much of that is from children and teens?" I asked.
Generally they agreed that children are less willing to check out audiobooks,
but that teens are more willing "if we have the book to go with it."
However, not everyone agreed that audiobooks belong in a library. "They keep people
from reading" was the most common concern.
Usually someone would
counter that with, "But they let people hear stories when they otherwise couldn't
be reading-like when they are driving."
"Maybe, but kids shouldn't
be allowed to listen to books, they need to be reading," was sometimes the reply.
That surprised me because I had been seeing lots of teachers use audiobooks
as a way to connect kids to text, not remove them from text. I returned home wondering
which statement was true. I decided that listening to an audiobook was a similar
experience to being read aloud to as a child. And I knew how important it was
for developing readers to be read to aloud. I went back to two important findings
in Becoming A Nation of Readers (U.S. Dept. of Education, 1985):
The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual
success in reading is reading aloud to children. (p. 23)
Listening
comprehension proficiency in kindergarten and first grade is a moderately good
predictor of the level of reading comprehension attained by the third grade. Evidence
about the later role of listening comprehension is even stronger. In a study involving
a nationwide sample of thousands of students, listening comprehension in the fifth
grade was the best predictor of performance on a range of aptitude and achievement
tests in high school, better than any other measure of aptitude or achievement
in the fifth grade. (p. 30) Those findings certainly indicate that
hearing text read aloud improves reading ability - not stifles it. Additionally,
my own work with middle-school reluctant readers verified that children who did
not grow up being read to were unlikely to have positive attitudes toward reading.
The aliterate students I've been interviewing since 1989 have few recollections
of being read to aloud. Their parents confirm this. These same students often
complain that now when they read silently they don't "hear" or "see" the text
as they read. They define reading as "calling words" or "sounding out words" and
rarely see it as a pleasurable, meaningful activity.
Contrast those statements with students who remember
being read to as children: they say that reading is an "adventure" or "a wonderful
escape" or is like "having a VCR in my mind." Avid readers have told me that they
not only "hear" the words but they "see" the action as they read the words on
a page. Perhaps that ability to "hear" the written word develops not through seeing
the word on the page, but through hearing it read off the page.
Caroline, an 11-year-old, explained it this way:
"Lots of times
when I'm reading I don't know what the word is but then if someone will say the
word I'm, like, 'so that is what that word looks like' and then I know the word.
Like, we were reading "buffet" and I kept thinking it was, you know, "buff-et,"
because when I would like sound it out it said "buffet." But then I joined the
group that was listening to the book and the next time I heard the person on the
tape say it and it wasn't "buff-et" it was "buff-ay" and I was, like, so that
is what that word is!"
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.
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. As Eric, a ninth grader who began
the year reading at a fourthgrade level, said to me:
"I hate those
baby books. That's why I like listening to books and following along. Then I can
be in the same discussion as everyone else in my class. Just 'cause I got problems
with my skills doesn't mean I don't have opinions about stuff."
Without audiobooks, Eric never would have become a part of a community of readers
that discussed The Contender (Robert Lipsyte, Harper Collins, 1967), Under
the Blood-Red Sun (Graham Salisbury, Dell, 1995), or The Outsiders
(S.E. Hinton, Viking, 1967). Through discussions, ideas are formed, tried out,
discarded, adapted, and negotiated. Meaning is explored and refined. Critical
thinking leads the way as students debate similarities, offer differences, and
discuss the issues the author presents. Participating in this type of discussion
is critical because, as Becoming a Nation of Readers states: "Thought provoking
questions stimulate the intellectual growth needed for success in reading" (p.
22).
One fifth-grade English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher
saw that using audiobooks honed her students' ability to ask questions as well
as increased their comprehension. She explained in a note to me why she thought
that happened.
As a teacher of small groups of ESL students,
I understand the importance of reading aloud to them above their independent reading
levels. However, when you have to read aloud all day long, your voice and throat
pay a price. Being able to share good literature through the use of a tape is
a nice break for me.
I have also discovered that students seem
to respond to the stories better when I am included as an active listener instead
of the instructor. Their questions at the end of listening are more insightful,
and their comprehension is 100 percent better than when I am reading aloud to
them. I believe that is because when I'm reading to them, I often stop and explain
what I think they need to know. But with a tape, I don't stop it and therefore
they must figure out what they don't understand. Audiobooks also
help create positive attitudes toward reading. Orion, an eighth grader who read
at a third-grade level and had a very negative attitude toward reading ("It is
my most hated thing in the universe"), became very involved in an audiobook program.
Between October 1996 and March 1997 he listened to 18 books. During that time,
his attitude toward reading changed. He met weekly with me to discuss what he
was reading/listening to, what he thought about the books, and what he thought
about listening to the books on tape. At the end of the four months, he said "Reading
can be okay. If the stories are good."
"Early in the year you said
'It is my most hated thing in the universe."' I reminded him. "What's different?"
"I like being able to hear them. They make more sense."
"Why?"
"Cause now I can see the words and hear them and know
what they are."
"Is that helping you when you don't have a tape?"
"Yeah, 'cause now I know what they [words] look like so I know what
they are."
Success stories like
Orion's and Eric's make audiobooks look like the answer to all reading
problems. If that were only true! The reality, though, is that audiobooks, although
a powerful tool for connecting students to books, are only a tool. And just as
you wouldn't expect a hammer, great tool that it is, to be appropriate for all
building tasks, you cannot expect audiobooks to be suitable for connecting all
students to texts.
For some students, audiobooks aren't appealing,
because they lack listening skills. Monica, an eighth grader, repeatedly returned
tape after tape, always telling her teacher "it was too hard to follow along"
or "when I listen my mind just wanders." Seventh grader A.J. said that listening
wasn't the problem but that "it's boring to just sit and listen."
Leah, a ninth grader, found other excuses to not listen: "The guy who was reading,
he, like, was too fast, you know, like reading it too fast." Ironically, Conrad,
one of Leah's classmates, complained about the same tape: "That man was, uh, really
slow." Another seventh grade student continually complained, "I just don't like
his voice. It sounds stupid." It is telling that he made that comment after listening
to three different audiobooks, each with a different reader.
In
one middle school, the teacher pointed out that the same students who had no interest
in listening to audiobooks also had trouble focusing on oral directions, discussions,
or interactions. On a few occasions, we took the print book away from the students
and instead let them draw, doodle, or play string games while they listened. That
resulted in some great art but generally didn't appear to improve their listening
skills or their interest in the story.
But most third-to ninth-grade
Students in the schools I visited enjoyed listening to audiobooks. Their teachers
worked hard at making audiobook use succeed, which included letting students choose
whether or not to listen. They used tapes in a variety of ways:
- as
an introduction to a story
- as support reading for second-language learners
or remedial readers
- as a way to develop a reader's ear - that ability to hear
what printed text sounds like even while reading silently
- as a motivational
tool.
Two of the schools administered standardized reading tests to their
remedial reading classes. In both places, audiobooks, were: a strong component
of those classes and in both places comprehension scores did improve. However,
those teachers were highly motivated and used many strategies that probably all
contributed to raising students' scores. They read aloud to students, let students
participate in creative dramatics and readers' theater, provided lots of time
for daily in-class choice reading, created responsecentered classrooms, and let
students choose their books.
Audiobooks, in the library and reading
classroom may at first seem strange. Most of us think of them as something for
long car trips. But time and time again, the students I've observed and teachers
I've interviewed have shown me that listening while you read has proved an effective
way of changing attitudes toward reading and improving reading ability for some
students. If creating lifetime readers is the goal, then every tool is needed:
audiobooks; are one such powerful tool.
References
Anderson, R.C., E.H. Hiebert, J.A. Scott, and I.A. Wilkinson, eds.
Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading. Washington,
DC: U.S. Department of Education, 1985.
Beers, K. "Choosing
Not to Read: Understanding Why Some Middle Schoolers Just Say No." In K. Beers
and B.G. Samuels (eds.) Into Focus: Understanding and Creating Middle School Readers.
Norwood, MA: Christopher Gordon Publishers, 1998: 37-66.
Reproduced, with permission, from School Library Journal, Copyright by
Cahners Business Information, A Division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
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