Why Listening Comprehension Is Essential to Reading Fluency

Why Listening Comprehension Is Essential to Reading Fluency

Learning how to decode words is only one step in the journey toward reading fluency. Students also need a solid foundation in language comprehension that is, they have to know what the words mean when strung together. The best way for students to develop this knowledge is by hearing words spoken aloud in context and audio books offer the perfect solution. The Challenge Facing Educators According to the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 35% of U.S. fourthgrade students scored at or above proficiency in reading. Put another way, nearly two-thirds of our nation s fourth graders struggle with reading skills. What s more, research from the Annie E. Casey Foundation suggests that children who aren t reading at grade-level proficiency by the end of the third grade are four times more likely to drop out of school. Students who are struggling readers by the time they reach fourth grade are at a significantly greater risk than their peers. What Are the Factors Behind This Challenge? Gough and Tunmer (1986) describe reading proficiency as the product of decoding skills and language comprehension. Children can t develop strong reading skills without both of these abilities. Language comprehension is the ability to derive meaning from words when they are part of sentences or other discourse. This requires understanding the meaning of the words themselves that is, a knowledge of vocabulary as well as the ability to make sense of the words as they are grouped together in context. And these skills come from repeated exposure to spoken, sophisticated vocabulary. But studies suggest that children s exposure to language at a young age varies quite dramatically, with children from low-income households at a distinct disadvantage to their peers. In one famous study (Hart and Risley, 1995), researchers found that children from low-income households had heard about 32 million fewer total words in their first four years than children from upper-income homes with parents who were professionals. That s because these latter children had been exposed to far more conversations and had been read to much more frequently.

Researcher Louisa C. Moats has suggested from her work in the District of Columbia Public Schools that linguistically poor first graders know the meanings of about 5,000 words, while linguistically rich first graders have a vocabulary of about 20,000 words. This 400% word gap helps explain why so many students struggle to read and these struggles will continue throughout a child s education if they aren t addressed early on. Making the Case for Listening as a Core Component of Reading Instruction To become proficient readers, children need to be exposed to a rich vocabulary of words, with multiple repetitions and exposures. And the best way to give children this exposure is through audio repetition. This idea is rooted in decades of research. For instance, Monique Senechal (1997) found that listening to multiple readings of a storybook facilitated children s acquisition of both expressive and receptive vocabulary. Similar conclusions have been reached in many other studies. Teachers can add a listening component to reading instruction by including a dedicated listening station to their literacy rotations. For instance, the Daily 5 framework structures literacy development time around five key activities, one of which is Listen to Reading. Listening to fluent reading helps model this activity for students, while introducing them to new words, sentence structures, concepts, and ideas. Audio repetition makes sense for the very youngest students who are just learning to read but it also makes sense for middle school students. Sticht and James (1984) found that listening comprehension outpaces reading comprehension until the age of 13 (see the related graphic). In other words, the most effective way to develop students vocabulary up until the eighth grade is through listening. Figure 15: Listening and Reading Comprehension, by Age

That s why the Common Core State Standards place a heavy emphasis on listening comprehension. The standards lay out very specific listening requirements by grade level, as part of a dedicated strand on speaking and listening skills. For instance, one of the standards for third grade English Language Arts proficiency is, Determine the main ideas and supporting details of a text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally. In explaining this emphasis on speaking and listening skills, the standards note: If literacy levels are to improve, the aims of the English language arts classroom, especially in the earliest grades, must include oral language in a purposeful, systematic way, in part because it helps students master the printed word. Besides having intrinsic value as modes of communication, listening and speaking are necessary prerequisites of reading and writing. How Audio Books Can Help Far from providing support only for struggling readers or those with learning disabilities, audio books are a great way to foster listening comprehension and build vocabulary for students of all abilities. Audio books allow for personalization to meet students unique needs, interests, and skill levels: Students can listen to the books that most engage them. Audio books also act as an important scaffold to help students read above their actual grade level (Beers, 1998). By taking away the burden of decoding, you can have students access more sophisticated texts and this is as true for advanced readers as it is for struggling readers. Tales2Go is an award-winning children s mobile audio book service that streams thousands of name-brand titles from leading publishers and storytellers to computers and mobile in the classroom and beyond. Here are four key reasons to subscribe to audio books from Tales2Go: (1) Audio books from Tales2Go give students instant, on-demand access to streaming audio from wherever they have an internet connection. The audio streams to any desktop, laptop, or mobile device, both in school and at home.

(2) Students have unlimited access to a complete catalog of more than 4,000 titles appropriate for pre-kindergarten through eighth grade including fiction, nonfiction, and Spanish-language titles. Other systems restrict access to individual titles purchased. (3) Students can have simultaneous access to the same titles. For the first time ever, a teacher can assign an audio book to an entire class and have all students listen to the same book at the same time; other systems place restrictions on the number of copies that can be listened to at once. (4) Teachers receive detailed metrics about their students listening habits, such as how many students have listened to audio books and for how long, which books and genres are most popular, and more. Audio books from Tales2Go can help ensure that students have the rich exposure to language and vocabulary they need to become fluent, lifelong readers. Bibliography Beers, K. (1998). Listen While You Read: Struggling Readers and Audiobooks. School Library Journal, 44(4), 30-35. Gough, P. and Tunmer, W. (1986). Decoding, reading, and reading disability. Remedial and Special Education, 7, 6-10. Hart, B., & Risley, T. (1995). Meaningful differences in everyday parenting and intellectual development in young American children. Baltimore: Brookes. Moats, L. (2001). Overcoming the Language Gap: Invest Generously in Teacher Professional Development. American Educator, http://www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/ae/summer2001/moats.cfm. Senechal, Monique. (1997). The differential effect of storybook reading on preschoolers acquisition of expressive and receptive vocabulary. Journal of Child Language, 24(1), 123-138. Sticht, T. G., & James, J. H. (1984). Listening and reading. Handbook of reading research, 1, 293-317.