Having considered some of the research on listening and literacy—as well as scenarios in which modern listening tools might be incorporated into a universally designed classroom setting—we offer the following recommendations and conclusions to enhance listening in the classroom and beyond.
1. Promote wide reading of audiobooks and digital texts for learning and enjoyment.
At a minimum, struggling readers should be able to access digital versions of their textbooks and literature that constitute their educational curriculum. However, becoming an expert reader requires a high volume of reading, with much of it self-selected and taking place outside of the classroom. It is extensive reading that encourages the development of deep interests that is the hallmark of successful learners. Therefore, supplement the core texts with a wide variety of titles, authors and genres that are appealing and appropriate for the targeted age group. Audiobooks engage readers of all ages and abilities.
2. Provide easy technical access to audio books and digital texts.
Today’s students are used to having technology at their fingertips. Audiobooks and digital texts can be accessed and read on a specialized e-book player, on the computer, over the Internet, via an iPod or over a cell phone. Schools should plan for multiple distribution channels so that students can easily access their digital texts anytime, anywhere, including outside of school. Not only will this support the struggling reader, it will help the busy student who will take advantage of reading books on his iPod while riding in the car to his soccer game.
Policymakers are already addressing the need for more digital text for students with
print disabilities. In 2004, the Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education, established two national centers at CAST to lead the development and support of the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS; U.S. Department of Education, 2006). NIMAS was also incorporated in the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act in 2004. While the legislation (Table 1) currently addresses the needs of individuals with print-related disabilities, publishers and software developers are already moving forward, thinking about the needs and preferences for students with and without disabilities. This will hopefully include discussions about the role of digital audio texts in learning as evidence mounts regarding the powerful role listening can play in supporting other literacies such as reading.
3. Teach students how to use read-aloud support strategically.
Although students are generally tech-savvy, they may not have the specialized knowledge or strategies for using audiobooks and digital texts with read-aloud functionality. Introduce the various tools to students, demonstrating how to open or download the text and use the various features, such as read-aloud options, navigation, bookmarking, note taking, and so forth. Provide guided practice and encourage students to share tips and strategies as they become more proficient.
In addition, students will need to be taught strategies for effective listening in these environments, in accordance with their purpose for reading and the characteristics of the text. Are they reading a challenging text on an unfamiliar topic or an easier text written by a favorite adventure or fantasy author? And, are they reading to learn about a new topic, to review for a test or presentation or to prepare a multimedia book report? The listening and reading process and use of features would vary in each of these contexts.
Some of the strategies are unique to listening to human speech, such as paying attention to the speaker’s pauses and volume, and some are unique to digital environments, such as pausing and replaying the audio track, marking passages and so forth. Providing listening strategy supports can help students become “thinking listeners” and therefore more successful learners.
4. Connect listening strategies and reading strategies.
Good readers are strategic readers. Take advantage of the strong research and practice base on reading strategy instruction by connecting students’ online reading process with their reading of print materials. Just as students predict, question, summarize, clarify, visualize and monitor their understanding with print text, they should be applying these strategies when reading and listening to digital text. Although digital text offers some unique affordances, understanding is the overall goal in both digital and print contexts. The proficient reader and learner will be one who can traverse these boundaries smoothly and flexibly.
5. Research and implement instructional approaches for teaching students how to effectively read, listen, view and communicate with multimedia.
As noted at the beginning of this paper, a shift is underway in the larger literacy space—especially online—to a greater emphasis on voice, sounds, graphics and movement. The Internet is the new literacy space, characterized by multimedia, hypertext structures that allow for nonlinear navigation, and multiple options for user interaction and customization of both the environment and the content. Although the Internet is widely used in and out of school, especially for student research purposes, the instructional emphasis has been on preparing students to conduct effective web searches and to be critical consumers of web content. For example, students might learn about a news event on the Internet by reading and listening via TTS to an Associated Press news report in text, viewing and listening to a narrated photo slideshow with captions, watching and listening to streaming video of a reporter on the scene, and reading/listening to an audio blog report. How do students learn to manage, sort, comprehend and even reconcile this stream of multimedia information, which is not always consonant? How much time should they spend viewing the images, versus listening and reading? How do they evaluate the ways in which media and text are being used (and manipulated) to communicate a particular view of the event, the world? How does good, active listening help the whole process of absorbing information and knowledge? Moreover, how can we help students to learn to communicate with multimedia?
Some of these questions are in the course of being addressed. Media educators bring a critical literacy perspective, literacy specialists often focus on the text demands, and information communication and library science professionals pay particular attention to searching and evaluating information on the Internet. There is a need to develop more effective models of comprehension that reflect the increased complexity of input and output modes that potentially occur in numerous combinations and permutations. Development of these models must be accompanied by development of companion instructional approaches.
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