Audiobooks: An Important Resource for Students

      As an avid reader, I can certainly appreciate the benefits of using my sense of sight for entertainment and/or learning when reading a book. However, as an audio professional and musician, I can also see equal benefits from using the sense of hearing by listening to audiobooks. When you read a book, you are completely reliant upon your imagination to fill in the gaps concerning the details that the book might have left out. For example, although a book can certainly describe a character with great detail, it is up to the reader’s imagination to create the sound of that character’s voice in order to make the story come alive. The beauty of an audiobook, however, is that there is no need to do this because it is already done for you! Listening to an audiobook can be very exciting and can also speed up the process of covering book content, because listening to a book often results in more chapters being covered than reading the traditional way. Additionally, listening to an audiobook can also be done while doing something else simultaneously, such as ironing, cooking, exercising, or getting dressed. This gives you the ability to multitask and get more things done while also being entertained. These are benefits for just about anyone of any age, but what about the importance of the benefits for students?

      On Reading rockets, which is a website that provides resources for teaching children how to read or how to improve reading, it is mentioned that some people do not consider listening to audiobooks part of the reading process. When you read, you should be able to summarize what was read by: providing the character, setting, problem, and solution. Furthermore, that summary indicates that you were successful in comprehending what the book was attempting to convey. If you listen to an audiobook and are able to provide a sufficient summary of what you heard, is that not the same as reading? I submit that it is, and for a young person, it may inspire a greater desire to read books in the traditional manner as well. This is just one possible benefit of listening to audiobooks. Reading Rockets provides a comprehensive list of the many benefits of listening to audiobooks for students, and developing critical listening skills is one of them. Changing Minds gives a definition of critical listening, which involves evaluating what was heard in order to form thoughts, opinions, or judgment, and this is very important for young readers to be able to do after reading any text.

      Young people are easily distracted and are prone to quickly becoming bored. Therefore, it is imperative that the media they are listening to be engaging enough to keep their attention, especially when there is nothing that is visual to accompany it. For these reasons, it is critical that the audio for audiobooks is professionally done in superb quality; that the voiceover actors/actresses are skilled; and that the audio production is creative, entertaining, and fascinating. Audiobooks are becoming increasingly readily available and more affordable for the public, which should increase the consumer demand for this type of media and hopefully make it easier for schools to purchase more audiobooks for school libraries. Consequently, it is the aim of AOAP to consistently create memorable and exciting audio for audiobooks, in order to contribute to the growth and development of students worldwide, because listening is fundamental too!