A colleague’s daughter devours audiobooks. ‘Nice of course,’ says her father, ‘but isn’t reading paper better for her development?’ Or should you, as a parent, be happy with the fact that your child is absorbed in a story?
This is what the experts say
An interesting question, at the beginning of the children’s book week: does a child learn as much from an audio book as from a reading book? ‘Out a large review study published in Educational Psychology Review It turns out that audio books have a positive effect on text comprehension, especially among weaker readers’, says Roel van Steensel, professor of Reading Behavior at the Free University in Amsterdam.
He explains how that works: especially with novice readers or children who have difficulty reading, a lot of energy goes into decoding the text. ‘They are mainly concerned with deciphering the words, so that they don’t get around to thinking about the text itself. You remove that barrier with audio books.’ As a result, the child is able to listen to a story for a long time and become acquainted with new, difficult words, which is good for language development.
If you look at what happens in the brain, reading paper is not that different from listening to a book. ‘Both require concentration and connections are made between the text read or spoken and one’s own life,’ says Els Stronks, professor of Early Modern Dutch Literature at Utrecht University. ‘It is different with digital reading, for example. We know from research that people get distracted and tired more quickly, which means they stop sooner.’
Audiobooks can help spark a love of stories. ‘In the Dutch school system, emphasis is placed on the cognitive skills of reading,’ says Stronks. ‘It mainly revolves around understanding a text structure. Reading becomes a kind of mathematics.’ It is not surprising that students start to avoid books in their spare time. “The reward is missing.”
How do you handle it?
‘Annie MG Schmidt once talked about the difference between reading children and living children’, says children’s author Jacques Vriens. For ‘living children’ who have less seat meat, an audio book can offer a solution. That does not alter the fact that the paper book is important. ‘Reading is a skill that requires a lot of practice’, says Van Steensel. ‘It is nice if there is a combination.’
But how do you make the step to the paper book? It helps to help a child get started, says Jacques Vriens. “Say: I’ll read the first two chapters and then you’ll continue.” He often stopped reading with his son at a very tense moment. ‘Then I said, ‘Sorry, I have to go to a meeting.’ I was working at an elementary school at the time. One evening I saw his light come on and he had started reading on his own.’
Set aside time to find a suitable book in the library together. Stronks: ‘Consult the employees, because they are aware of the latest books.’
It is important to lead by example with older children. ‘Pick up a book and read when your children are around’, says Van Steensel. ‘That way they see that reading is relaxation.’ Moreover, in this way you make reading something in common. Something to do together, rather than alone. ‘That is motivating.’