Research

Some research on reading-while-listening (RWL).

• Pamela Stoeckel O'Day, "Reading while listening: Increasing access to print through the use of audio books" (January 1, 2002). Boston College Dissertations and Theses. Paper AAI3077353.

"...Most importantly, findings suggest that reading while listening to audio books supported the students' word recognition skills, enhanced comprehension of the story, improved their acquisition of English vocabulary, and provided a model of fluent reading. The combination of aural information coupled with the written text provided scaffolding for struggling readers. Once students had mastered the technique of simultaneously reading and listening, they were able to read independently with minimal teacher supervision."

• Anna C.-S. Chang, Gains to L2 listeners from reading while listening vs. listening only in comprehending short stories, System, Volume 37, Issue 4, December 2009

"...Overall test results show that students gained only 10% more with the R/L mode; however, students showed a strong preference for the R/L mode. The majority of the students perceived that listening in the R/L mode made listening tasks easier, the duration seem shorter, the stories more interesting, and they paid much better attention. With such a strong and positive effect on L2 listening, this study suggests R/L aural input mode could be used to develop L2 learners’ listening proficiency in the long run rather than merely to boost test scores in the short term. Teaching suggestions and scope for future research are also provided."

• Giving control over playback speed may be of benefit: http://www.readingonline.org/articles/bergman/wait.html

Similar Tools

• Capstone Interactive Library - Offers about 206 books. Documents a lot of benefits and research behind this method. Has many ideas for how to use this technology in different ways.