Lending an Ear: How Audiobooks Pave the Way to Adult and Family Literacy
How have audiobooks impacted your enjoyment of books?
For many, audiobooks can offer a welcome escape to another world at the touch of a button, but they can also be a valuable literacy tool for all ages.
In celebration of National Adult Education and Family Literacy Week, two industry professionals, Amy Rubinate and Zura Johnson, share how audiobooks have been vital to overcoming literacy challenges from childhood into adulthood.
“Audiobooks make reading accessible to so many people in so many different ways,” says Rubinate, CEO of Mosaic Audio. “As someone with ADHD, I can attest that audiobooks have helped me in focusing on a book as it was written, immersing myself in the language and the story, rather than getting impatient and skipping to the next plot point.”
Rubinate wears many professional hats as a narrator, producer, casting director, and even an author of two historical children’s graphic novels. She has also directed many acclaimed children’s audiobooks such as When We Flew Away and Ada Twist, Scientist. She even worked briefly in the children’s room at the Ferguson Library in Stamford, CT, while in college. Rubinate emphasizes that reading aloud has been proven time and again to improve literacy in families, increasing vocabulary and comprehension — particularly when it is a group activity, such as listening together on a road trip.
Sign the pledge to vote for libraries!
For award-winning narrator Zura Johnson, audio listening has always been a family affair. As a child, her grandmother, who lived far away, would record herself on cassette tape telling stories — many of her own invention — and send them to her granddaughter to keep their connection close.
“When I was 4 or 5, I got my first books on tape. Tales of Beatrix Potter, and Alice in Wonderland,” shares Johnson. “I would listen until I memorized them, voices and all, and then I would recite them at length to my family. My parents decided I needed an audience and signed me up for theatre.”
While Johnson connected instantly to the audio, reading proved a far bigger challenge.
“I would lose my place constantly…I couldn’t make sense of things and I was so slow,” says Johnson. “I liked short books and picture books, but a full page of words was totally overwhelming. I wanted the stories though, so I would struggle through, but audiobooks I could listen to for hours and hours.”
Johnson’s career journey took her from the stage to voiceover work after marriage and children, but craving stories is what set her on the path to audiobook narration. In her late thirties, Johnson discovered she had ADHD when she started seeing symptoms of it in her young daughter, and they got tested together.
Send an email to your Representatives to show your support for libraries!
While prep and accuracy when preparing a book project can still be challenging, Johnson has never regretted her career choice.
“When I pre-read a book, it takes me a lot of time to get through it,” says Johnson. “I usually end up with more corrections — called pickups — than most narrators, but I am accustomed to it at this point, and I can get through them quickly. Accuracy is a lot easier line-by-line because there are fewer words to get tangled together.”
Rubinate says the audiobook industry has made great strides in the last decade promoting literacy for all ages, such as Audible’s Whispersync technology that allows a listener to switch between either reading or listening to a story while it seamlessly syncs across devices of one’s choice. Rubinate has also recently begun producing read-along books for educational publishers distributed through the library market.
“Read-alongs have been around for a long time, but eBook technology has helped streamline them; the program prompts children to read along with the audio by highlighting each word as it plays,” says Rubinate. “We focus on bringing the stories to life in a way that will feel both natural and engaging to the participant, with special attention to pacing and emphasis that will enhance their understanding of the text.”
Your donations help support libraries across the country.
I’ve seen audio at work in helping my daughter read simple sentences when she was gifted a LeapReader Learn-to-Read gift pack for her fifth birthday this year. The hard copy books that focus on various vowel and consonant sounds include interactive pages that engage with the included audio “pen” that sounds out individual letters and words or allows the stories to be read aloud in full. It is a wonderful screen-free “flex” resource because she can use the pen independently, or we can read the stories out loud together like a traditional children’s book.
The benefits of audiobooks for adults/parents cannot be overstated, however. As a mother to a small child, most of my “reading” is done listening in the car as I mommy-taxi from one destination to another.
“Audiobooks are just as important for adults as they are for kids because there are many adults that still struggle with reading, and they shouldn’t have to miss out on the good stuff,” says Johnson. “Having an audiobook you can turn on during a commute or chores means a lot of people that wouldn’t be reading can. Especially moms!”
Visit www.everylibrary.org to learn more about our work on behalf of libraries.
#librarymarketers: Enjoy this story? Want to use it for your library newsletter, blog, or social media? This article is published under Creative Commons License Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International and is free to edit and use with attribution. Please cite EveryLibrary on medium.com/everylibrary.
This work by EveryLibrary is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0