Kindle and Audible.com have lanched a new product that combines listening and reading and they call it immersion reading.  Yes listening enhances reading, especially for struggling readers, or for language learners. That has been at the core of the LingQ system for years. LingQ, of course, offers other functions to help readers acquire language. I guess our ideas are now going mainstream.

 

Academic research supports the assertion that all readers can benefit from

listening while reading. In an influential 2007 study, “Learning through

Listening in the Digital World,” neuropsychologist David Rose and professor

Bridget Dalton drew upon cognitive educational research to report that “both

learning to listen and listening to learn are critical to literacy in the 21st

century as new technologies rebalance what it means to be literate and to

learn.” Professor David Dockterman commented on Rose’s and Dalton’s findings,

“For struggling readers, narration can provide decoding support, but there’s

an added benefit to well-narrated text that helps even competent readers.

Hearing something read with expression provides additional clues to the

meaning beyond the words themselves.”

 

I have been saying this for years. I have tried to interest basic literacy teachers in LingQ, with no luck. They want to “teach” people how to read, how to infer, higher level thinking, and other such “cognitive” skills rather than just letting them listen while they read, and enjoy whatever interests them. More information here.

 

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