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OneClickdigital Audiobooks – The State Library subscribes to a package of youth books with unlimited copies. Not all books can have an unlimited copies version, but there are over 1600 so far in both fiction and nonfiction. “Half a Chance” is on the William Allen White nominee list for this year. CGHS Library has a smaller number of audiobooks available, and you have access to them as well, but the registration process is slightly different, and you do not need a Kansas Library eCard. |
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Photo: Martin Dimitrov
This question — whether or not listening to an audiobook is “cheating” — is one University of Virginia psychologist Daniel Willingham gets fairly often, especially ever since he published a book, in 2015, on the science of reading. (That one was about teaching children to read; he’s got another book out next spring about adults and reading.) He is very tired of this question, and so, recently, he wrote a blog post addressing it. (His opening line: “I’ve been asked this question a lot and I hate it.”) If, he argues, you take the question from the perspective of cognitive psychology — that is, the mental processes involved — there is no real difference between listening to a book and reading it. So, according to that understanding of the question: No, audiobooks are not cheating.
His reasoning reveals some fascinating insights about the way the brain makes sense of language, whether written or spoken. But first, consider what that assertion — that listening is cheating — is saying: It suggests that the listener got some reward without putting in the work. Because that does seem to be the typical argument, Willingham said. “It’s not that you’re missing out on something, or it’s not that this experience could be better for you,” he told Science of Us. “It’s that you’re cheating. And so they think you’re getting the rewarding part of it … and it’s the difficult part that you’ve somehow gotten out of.” So that implies, Willingham argues, that to your brain, listening is less “work” than reading. And that is true, sort of — but it stops being true somewhere around the fifth grade.
There are two basic processes happening when you’re reading: There is decoding, or translating the strings of letters into words that mean something. And then there is language processing, or comprehension — that is, figuring out the syntax, the story, et cetera. (It’s obviously much more complicated than that; this is what’s known as the “simple view” of reading, but it’s sufficient for thinking about the question at hand.) Researchers have studied the question of comprehension for decades, and “what you find is very high correlations of reading comprehension and listening comprehension,” Willingham said. As science writer Olga Khazan noted in 2011, a “1985 study found listening comprehension correlated strongly with reading comprehension — suggesting that those who read books well would listen to them well. In a 1977 study, college students who listened to a short story were able to summarize it with equal accuracy as those who read it.” Listeners and readers retain about equal understanding of the passages they’ve consumed, in other words.
Decoding, by contrast, is specific to reading, Willingham said; this is indeed one more step your mind has to take when reading a print book as compared to listening to the audiobook version. But by about late elementary school, decoding becomes so second-nature that it isn’t any additional “work” for your brain. It happens automatically.
According to the simple model of reading, then, you really can’t consider listening to a book to be easier than reading it. But there are other differences here, of course, one being that it’s really easy for your mind to begin to wander when you’re listening to an audiobook. But is that more or less likely to happen as skimming the less interesting parts when you’re reading? There’s not exactly an easy way to test that question empirically, but there are some comparable things about the way people circle back to catch the stuff they missed, whether they’re reading or listening. “About 10 to 20 percent of the eye movements you make are actually regressions, where your eyes are moving backwards,” Willingham explained. Many of those regressions happen when you thought you had the word, but — whoops, no, you didn’t quite get it; others happen when you might be trying to work out syntax.
And something similar happens with the brain’s auditory system, specifically a phenomenon called echoic memory. “I’m sure you’ve had the experience where someone says something, and you’re not really listening, and then you can tell from their intonation that they’ve stopped talking and that they’ve asked you a question,” Willingham said. “And you’re like, ‘. . . I totally was not listening to this person.’ And then you say, ‘I’m sorry, what?’ And then in that moment where you say, ‘I’m sorry, what?’ — you’re able to recover what it was they asked you.” You did not listen. And yet you still heard, and there is a wisp of a memory of that, which is still banging around inside your mind. “And you are, in the time it takes you to say, ‘I’m sorry, what?’ — you are consulting that little memory store, and you get the last second or two of what they said,” he continued. So that, he argues, is comparable to the visual system’s eye regressions: In both mental processes, your mind ticks back to what it just consumed, in order to double check the meaning.
. . . as far as the mental processes are concerned, there really isn’t much difference between reading and listening to a book. One is not more work than the other. And yet there is, maybe, something to the way your elementary-school teacher might’ve phrased the question — you’re only cheating yourself. Returning for a moment to the simple model of reading: The decoding process does become automatic once you’ve passed a certain level of reading proficiency, but you can become even better at this well into adulthood — and the only way to get better is by reading. The improvements are small (“infinitesimal,” as Willingham put it) but they are there, and up for the grabs for a reader. Comprehension, too, is something that improves the more you read. And there are also, of course, times when you need to remind yourself of something farther back in the text, something that is no longer held in that one- to two-second echoic memory. (Which Greyjoy is Victarion, again?) You could pause the audiobook and hit that 15-second rewind button until you find it. But you probably won’t.
There’s also this question to contend with: Are you consuming the text the way the author intended it? (And how much does that matter?) The reader of Willingham’s own audiobook did a wonderful job, for example, but there were jokes stepped on, punch lines that didn’t quite land the way Willingham . . . intended. “The idea that you are experiencing the novel in a way the author did not intend, that you’re missing out in some way — I’m much more open to that than ‘You listened to it, you big cheater,’” Willingham said.
The literary value of audiobooks versus print books — that’s up for wider interpretation. But there’s another way to consider the question of cheating, one that, incidentally, annoys Willingham the most. On my commute this week, for example, I began listening to H Is for Hawk, and so some might argue that, once I’m done, I can’t claim to have really “read” it. “There are people who think of reading as a sort of achievement, a mark of honor that you’ve done something worthy of respect,” Willingham said. “There’s this sense that when you have read a book, you’ve done something that is worthy of pride, and it is worthy of other people patting you on the back.”
This, to his mind, is nonsense, a holdover from elementary-school days. “You know, there are classrooms that are set up with that very much in mind,” he said. “There’s a reader wall and you get a star next to your name every time you finish a book, and the number of books is counted. And I think some of that feeling in adults may be … a hangover from prior school experiences.” It’s a rather sad way to view reading as an adult, he contends, and he has a point.
From NY Magazine
Visit Your Public Library and Read (or Listen) for Free! Just a few pages a day can make a big difference. This is your chance to read something you choose and will enjoy. If you need a few ideas, check out TeenReads Ultimate Reading List for 2016 or browse the catalog of your local library.
What Are the Benefits of Summer Reading?
Besides being fun to listen to, audiobooks have a positive impact on reading skills. The recent Tales2go research study showed that if you spend 20 minutes a day, five days a week listening to audiobooks, you gain "58 percent of the annual expected gain in reading achievement in just 10 weeks, putting [listeners] three months ahead of control students."
The high school audiobooks are available to you over the summer. The directions for setting it up the first time are here. Email me for the library access code.
"Lots of audio titles are available through searchable services like Beelingo.com, which uses the wealth of Librivox online books. Librivox is a non-profit entity that offers over 9,600 cataloged audio classics that are recorded by almost 7,500 volunteer readers and are available online for free." (From Audiobooks and the Summer Reading Push by Phil Goerner)
CGHS Library also has ebooks available, and the instructions for setting your access on a smartphone or reader for the first time are here. If you run into trouble, let me know. Also, remember that your nearest public library has a wealth of books to read and listen to.
SYNC is a free summer audiobook program for teens. Starting May 5th 2016, SYNC will give away two complete audiobook downloads a week - pairs of high interest titles, based on weekly themes. Sign up for email or text alerts and be first to know when new titles are available to download at www.audiobooksync.com.
Preview the Titles HERE!
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Access https://sites.google.com/a/cgrove417.org/cghs-library/home/audiobooks to Learn How to Set Up Your Device for Audio
The SYNC free audiobook download project is back! Each week, the project organizers offer one classic and one contemporary book for young adults. You can only download the titles for a week before they’re replaced with new ones, but once they’re downloaded, they’re yours to keep. Learn more here!
Here’s the 2014 lineup:
May 15 – May 21
WARP: THE RELUCTANT ASSASSIN by Eoin Colfer, Narrated by Maxwell Caulfield (Listening Library)
THE TIME MACHINE by H.G. Wells, Narrated by Derek Jacobi (Listening Library)
May 22 – May 28
CRUEL BEAUTY by Rosamund Hodge, Narrated by Elizabeth Knowelden (Harper Audio)
OEDIPUS THE KING by Sophocles, Performed by Michael Sheen and a full cast (Naxos AudioBooks)
May 29 – June 4
CONFESSIONS OF A MURDER SUSPECT by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, Narrated by Emma Galvin (Hachette Audio)
THE MURDER AT THE VICARAGE by Agatha Christie, Narrated by Richard E. Grant (Harper Audio)
June 5 – June 11
ALL OUR YESTERDAYS by Cristin Terrill, Narrated by Meredith Mitchell (Tantor Audio)
JULIUS CAESAR by William Shakespeare, Performed by Richard Dreyfuss, JoBeth Williams, Stacy Keach, Kelsey Grammer, and a full cast (L.A. Theatre Works)
June 12 – June 18
CODE NAME VERITY by Elizabeth Wein, Narrated by Morven Christie and Lucy Gaskell (Bolinda Audio)
THE HIDING PLACE by Corrie Ten Boom, John Sherrill, Elizabeth Sherrill, Narrated by Bernadette Dunne (christianaudio)
June 19 – June 25
I’D TELL YOU I LOVE YOU, BUT THEN I’D HAVE TO KILL YOU by Ally Carter, Narrated by Renée Raudman (Brilliance Audio)
ANNE OF GREEN GABLES by L.M. Montgomery, Narrated by Colleen Winton (Post Hypnotic Press)
June 26 – July 2
FORGIVE ME, LEONARD PEACOCK by Matthew Quick, Narrated by Noah Galvin (Hachette Audio)
OCTOBER MOURNING: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Lesléa Newman, Narrated by Emily Beresford, Luke Daniels, Tom Parks, Nick Podehl, Kate Rudd, Christina Traister (Brilliance Audio)
July 3 – July 9
TORN FROM TROY by Patrick Bowman, Narrated by Gerard Doyle (Post Hypnotic Press)
PETER AND THE STARCATCHERS by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, Narrated by Jim Dale (Brilliance Audio)
July 10 – July 16
CLAUDETTE COLVIN: Twice Toward Justice by Philip Hoose, Narrated by Channie Waites (Brilliance Audio)
WHILE THE WORLD WATCHED by Carolyn Maull McKinstry with Denise George, Narrated by Felicia Bullock (Oasis Audio)
July 17 – July 23
THE CASE OF THE CRYPTIC CRINOLINE by Nancy Springer, Narrated by Katherine Kellgren (Recorded Books)
THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES II by Arthur Conan Doyle, Narrated by David Timson (Naxos AudioBooks)
July 24 – July 30
HEADSTRONG by Patrick Link, Performed by Deidrie Henry, Ernie Hudson, Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine and Scott Wolf (L.A. Theatre Works)
THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE by Robert Louis Stevenson, Narrated by Scott Brick (Tantor Audio)
July 31 – August 6
DIVIDED WE FALL by Trent Reedy, Narrated by Andrew Eiden (Scholastic Audio)
THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE by Stephen Crane, Narrated by Frank Muller (Recorded Books)
August 7 – August 13
LIVING A LIFE THAT MATTERS by Ben Lesser, Narrated by Jonathan Silverman and Ben Lesser (Remembrance Publishing)
THE SHAWL by Cynthia Ozick, Narrated by Yelena Shmulenson (HighBridge Audio)