As a future English teacher it will be my job to motivate students to read. Of course, what I wish is that all of my students have the skills to read the books assigned and that all of my students will read what I assign as well. However, in reality, many of my students will not be able to read the books assigned at grade level. Usually, because of the structure of class, those students go unnoticed and do not get the help they need. Teachers assume that all their students have read and those who have not read are just neglectful. Instead of ignoring this we need to address it and realize that we can make things easier for our students. I believe audio books are a great way to help the students who have trouble reading. Because audio books read to our students it allows the students to think and comprehend. Usually, a student who struggles with reading will focus most of their time and effort on defining the words they are unfamiliar with and sounding out the words that do not come easy to them. An audio book allows these students to focus all of their attention on the content. What I hear often is “If a student can not read, how have they graduated to the next grade” and while I do understand that thought, the fact is, they have graduated and they do still need to learn the new content. If we can make things easier for our students occasionally, I say, why not? Yes, maybe audio books are not the way to go for every text and every assignment, but I certainly believe they can be very useful in moderation.
Great Idea! One of my students that I teach has some trouble with vocabulary terms and I gave her a dance textbook but I never thought that maybe the problem is that she has trouble with reading in general rather than the specific terms. I will try to find an audio book for dance, hopefully they have them!
ReplyDeleteThroughout grade school, I was one of those students you mentioned. I spent most of my efforts defining words. When I read, I read words, not sentences or paragraph, but words. The assigned text always challenged me because I had to read paragraphs multiple times. With a mother who only spoke Spanish, I was at a disadvantage because I did not start to learn English until I started pre-school. Your statement, “Teachers assume that all their students have read and those who have not read are just neglectful” is extremely accurate. I was perceived as a student lacking empathy. “If we can make things easier for our students occasionally, I say, why not?” Although rigor is important, I agree with you on audio books. It can be used as a built-up or stepping-stone, if you will, to more difficult challenging material.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a great tool for an English classroom. You have compiled together great reasons of why we should use them. I think another great occassion will be when teaching Shakespeare. Students often read Shakespeare and find themselves lost in the words. Perhaps if they hear someone reading it for them a light bulb of comprehension might turn on. Often they are distracted by unfamiliar words, or words that are no longer used in our language, and look past what the words are actually saying to them. Hearing these words will leave off the distracting words and will help students pick up words they do know and will help them make some meaning out of the text.
ReplyDeleteThe student that I have to tutor is classified as having a learning disability due to his reading problems. As a part of his summer project, he had to choose a book to read. He chose to read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. My tutoring student's mother told me that she bought him an audiobook, but she claimed that she felt bad because she thought it was "Cheating." It is sad to think that there is also a stigma behind promoting something that helps to provide access to the curriculum. I think you manage to convey that point quite well because you talked about how it helps students who particularly struggle with reading. The student that I tutored said that the audio book has managed to help him with his comprehension.
ReplyDeleteHowever, one problem is that the student may know how the words sound and can be able to pronounce it, but the student may not know what a particularly word means. Hearing how the word sounds is not going to help a student. Thus, we need to make sure that we have a commitment to making sure we engage our students in word study. We want our students to be able to understand what to do when they do not understand a word. Students focus most of their time trying to decode the words, so they do not get to focus on the meaning making. Do the audio books assist on making this stuff easier for our students? Yes it does. You manage to say that quite well.
I think the blog post was done quite well, but maybe there are some potential downsides to using audiobooks? And with those downsides, what can we do as educators to make sure that they are not an issue for our students?
I like the idea of using audio books in a classroom for students who have trouble reading. Students will still be required to listen and comprehend the material while listening to the book. The students will also get the information they need to know while using an audio book, if just reading the book isn't successful for them. Audio books can also increase the students ability to read because as they are listening to the audio book they should read along, which will help them with word recognition.
ReplyDeleteI think that audiobooks are great for students with learning disabilities or who simply are not reading at grade level but I do believe that they should be used in moderation. The only reason I say that is because as Language Arts teachers, we are responsible for teaching students how to read and write. That is why I think it would be great for the student to have both the audiobook and the physical book; that way, the student will be able to follow along on the physical book while listening to the audiobook. I think that in the classroom, you would still need to ensure that the student understand the language in the book, and that he/she is working on his/her reading and writing skills. When it comes to something like Shakespeare, I think that audiobooks work really great in the classroom. Shakespeare should also be performed so listening to an audiobook would be really helpful for students in order to understand the way certain lines should be spoken.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that audio books are an effective way to enhance the comprehension of a text. However, I am against the continuous use of them. Yes, it would make things easier for a struggling reader and it would help them finish an assignment more quickly but how would it help them get better? I know it is difficult to watch them suffer but I think the more difficult thing would be to watch them grow and live longer as struggling readers when it could have been helped from a younger age. The longer a student, or anyone for that matter, has the mentality that they can not do something like read, the harder it will be to correct it as they have grown to accept something that should not be accepted. Therefore as much as I agree with the ways in which audio books ease the process, I would not continuously suggest them to my struggling readers.
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