Assignment Task: Based on the essay below:
1. Paraphrase the essay's thesis.
2. Identify and list below the criteria that were used to conduct the evaluation.
3. List 3 more criteria that could be used to evaluate this subject.
4. List 2 suggestions for improvement.
5. Overall, do you agree with the evaluation? A brief paragraph that explains why or why not.
I never could understand how people could enjoy reading. Reading has, for a good chunk of my life, was an exhaustive practice. This is because I have dyslexia, which unless you have it you can never understand it. Reading can feel like a mental marathon. I could read I just did not like to as it was not enjoyable to me. This certainly caused some turbulence when my 7th grade English teacher got my reading level results. She could not understand how I had a college reading level, but I hated reading. I had, at some point, been assigned the second book in the Eragon series to do a book report. It was huge book in my eyes. After a spectacular mental breakdown in front of my individual education plan (IEP) provider. She went out and found the autobook version of Ergon. After a lot of coaxing, I tried it. I followed along with the narrator and reading went from a marathon to a car ride. Here is the special thing the teacher did for me. She could not find the discs in our library, so she went to a public library in a different city to find it. This was an adjunct to help me read. This type of resource should be available for those who have trouble reading. Audiobooks and being able to listen to text is a under apricated medium. I wonder why audiobooks are in the schools.
At some point, we all hear about different types of learners visual, auditory, and hands on. Most curriculums work all three in. Yet the accessibility to audiobooks is limited at best. This is a disservice to every student. Especially, in the god-awful works of William Shakespeare. I get it is a classic, but its not easy for most people to read. "Listening to a narrator can help them wade through archaic language and unfamiliar sentence structure. If students are having difficulty reading Shakespeare, ask them to listen to a work such as The Tragedy of Macbeth, which is free from Librivox." Lamb, Annette, "Listeners' Advisory Part 3: Audiobooks across the Curriculum.". Lamb brings up a great point that listening allows you to spend more time with figuring it out the style. Applications such as audibles makes audiobooks accessible making reading easier because you can have books on your phone. Vital source is a great place for digital textbooks, and it comes with auto reading. These things have become more available, but it is not something that you probably would readily know about.
We all have heard someone talk negatively about a movie based on a book because "the book is better". This makes sense because the movie and the book are different because the author is not the director. There is a similar attitude towards audiobooks. Because "that's not reading" is a common phrase. "Listening Isn't Reading. Is poetry a type of reading? What about enjoying plays? Some texts are intended to be listening experiences. Think of listening as just another way to experience a text. Listeners acquire information through their ears rather than their eyes." Lamb, Annette. This stigma of negative attitude is more about ego stroking. Have you ever tried to read a science textbook where there is very technical language? Reading with a narrator and following them will cut down on trying to figure out the correct pronunciation. Thus, speeding up your ability to read. Not everyone can sit down and read a book for pleasure. But audiobooks allow you to enjoy a book while doing other things. The attitude is an outdated and about as fruitful as a cat vs dog and which is better.
Have you ever read something, and it made no sense but when you hear it aloud it makes sense? Well, that is the benefit of using audiobooks for textbooks. Rather then stuck trying to understand the complexity of the text, you can spend more energy on comprehension. Lamb even praises the benefits for students learning English. Learning English will allow students to fully emerge themselves in the language and connect the written with the spoken word. Audiobooks have a role in education more than just dyslexic kids or non-English. It is a tool that allows a higher level of comprehension when learning an unfamiliar topic. Like I stated before Shakespeare is hard to read let alone understand it.
Do you have a favorite book or series? I implore you to see if there is an audiobook version. We listen to music, news, and podcasts all the time for entertainment. What keeps you listening really the content or the person singing or talking. It can be both, but a boring speaker can kill it. A great narrator can take a book and make it into an audio drama. My personal favorite is Ray Porter; he voices Darkseid in the justice league movie. He brought the characters from Jonathan Maberry's Joe Ledger series to life. I was on a 24-hour shift when I found the first book Patient Zero. I was starting the second book by the time I went home. It was some things that I did not understand how people could sit down and read an entire book. A narrator gives voices to your favorite character and more emotion than just reading. Because a narrator can inflect their voice to reinforce emotions the author wants you to feel. It is a way of enjoying books that most people do not consider.
We all have seen an old, battered book. Books age and degrade through they years. The books can be ruined in so many ways. That is a problem most audio books are digital and can be accessed with Wi-Fi. This is quality ebooks to use with audiobooks. Audiobooks have quality of music production. There are many computer-generated speech programs to read text. You can often speed up the reading which is something you cannot do just do while reading on your own. You will have to deal with some distortion. But typically, you can process a significant number of words listening than reading.
Audiobooks are tool that can break barriers. This is something that I wish I had access to earlier in life. This is something that can create more lovers of literature. This is something that is not all that controversial. Unfortunately, no one is championing for the use on a grand scale. At best, it will become the norm in education slowly. This is a form of entertainment that can enhance the works of authors. The audiobooks can open of a new world of literature, learning, and vocabulary for those who struggle to read.