What an interesting question, Shonda - I can always rely on you and LM_NET for some
really good
professional academic discussion.
My personal belief is that audio, print, digital and electronic texts all
contribute in their own
way to helping the student become LITERATE. Surely that is our ultimate outcome,
especially if
being literate means being able to talk, listen, read and write effectively and
efficiently.
Everything we say, hear, read and write contributes to our literacy development,
even when we are
old and grey (and that's the Aussie spelling so you have learned something right
there). Each
contributes to the development of the other and because the brain is constantly
processing on many
levels, and the individual is making unique connections based on their personal
experience and
expertise, one format may dominate now, another in five minutes time. So we have an
obligation to
offer students the opportunity to develop their literacy skills in as many formats
as we can, from
cartoons to conversation.
To address your particular question, I turned to Marie Clay, whom I believe to be
the guru of modern
reading methods ... and have copied an paragraph from a book I have written.
Marie Clay describes it as a "process by which the child can, on the run, extract a
sequence of cues
from printed texts and relate these, one to another, so he understands the precise
message of that
text."
The critical issue is making meaning by making connections between the text, the
illustrations and
the reader's existing understandings of how language and the world work together.
These
understandings include what the reader knows about
. their particular world, their home, family and relationships with people
. the words in their world and the meanings attributed to them
. the structure of their language and how it fits together
. the written symbols from which they are expected to make meaning
. the structure of book language and what stories promise and offer
Making meaning is personal, active and ongoing with "the child [continuing] to gain
in this skill
throughout his entire education, interpreting statements of ever-increasing
complexity." (Clay M,
1972. Reading: The Patterning of Complex Behaviour).
As you can see, Clay wrote that in 1972 in New Zealand where, from memory, the
introduction of the
cassette tape and portable tape decks was in its infancy, if indeed it had even
begun. So the
concept of reading without a "printed text" was not a consideration. So if we put
that aside and
take on board the rest, then I think that listening to an audiobook in the way you
describe does
constitute reading.
In terms of actual brain function, print vs audio means that instead of the message
going via the
eyes, it is going via the ears and therefore goes to a slightly different part of
the parietal lobe
for initial processing. In the case of print, it goes to the occipital lobes and
these do store
images in the memory so that we can recognise words we have seen before
automatically. In the case
of audio, the message goes to the temporal lobe and it appears that parts of these
lobes are
critical for integrating the memories and sensations of taste, sound, sight and
touch. But whether
the input is via the occipital or the temporal lobes, it is still processed in the
cerebrum which is
the centre for intellectual activity.
So technically, reading from a book as opposed to an audiotape is different but if
we agree that the
outcome is to make meaning from a text, then they are both accomplishing the same
thing.
Barbara
Barbara Braxton
Teacher Librarian
Palmerston District Primary School
PALMERSTON ACT 2913
AUSTRALIA
T. 61 2 6205 6162
F. 61 2 6205 7242
E. barbara@iimetro.com.au
W. http://www.palmdps.act.edu.au
"Together we learn from each other."
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