Re: Using audiobooks/texts

[susan mandelbaum <sbdm67206@yahoo.com>]

We are required in our district to do teach some stories from Junior Great Books. The premise of JGB is to read the story or play an audio of the story as a "first read" for the students. I did not see the purpose of this as I teach accelerated readers who are quite capable of reading the stories by themselves. In fact many voiced disapproval and verbalized that they would rather read it themselves. Yet, the comprehension after a required second read where they are looking for a specific item after listening to the story is unbelievably high. I have seen the results over and over again in my assessment driven district, that there is value in audiotaped stories. Susan

MC <mmcooper@alumni.utexas.net> wrote:  I do it sometimes. This past year I had a large number of apathetic (but
bright) regular students who had been apathetic for so long that their
skills were really suffering. I knew if I assigned a novel, even in lit
circles, they would goof around and avoid work. So I did a whole-class novel
on tape--they followed along in the text--and they really loved it. They had
activities to complete (writing analogies, that kind of thing) and I threw
in a quiz every now and then to check comprehension. They all participated
and could easily tell me what had happened in each chapter. Okay, maybe it
was the easy way out for the last three weeks of the year, but in all
honesty, at that point I was willing to do anything that would keep them 
engaged and learning. This worked.

Even with my advanced kids, I've used a radio drama of "The Necklace" and
they loved it. And I have a CD I use for "Jabberwocky"... the reader does a
much better job than I usually can. Heh. So I definitely think there is a
place for audio text in the classroom.

Melissa

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Holly Kendrick" 
To: 
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2006 10:15 PM
Subject: [middle-lit] Using audiobooks/texts


> How do you feel about using audio books or texts of a short story, poem or
> novel in the classroom to increase comprehension and vocabulary
> acquisition? I am doing research for a possible thesis topic. Does it
> even merit discussion? So many teachers that I've talked to believe that
> it makes reading too easy for students.
>
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