![]() ![]() Next, everyone silently read the same text, purportedly written by the person whose voice they had just heard. In one experiment, subjects listened to a recording of someone’s voice who either spoke quickly or slowly. Although writing lacks symbols for prosody, experienced readers infer it as they go. “What a great party” can be a sincere compliment or sarcastic put-down, but they look identical on the page. That’s the pitch, tempo and stress of spoken words. Nevertheless, there are differences between print and audio, notably prosody. Indeed, research shows that adults get nearly identical scores on a reading test if they listen to the passages instead of reading them. We use the mental mechanism that evolved to understand oral language to support the comprehension of written language. Writing is less than 6,000 years old, insufficient time for the evolution of specialized mental processes devoted to reading. Once you’ve identified the words (whether by listening or reading), the same mental process comprehends the sentences and paragraphs they form. Although decoding is serious work for beginning readers, it’s automatic by high school, and no more effortful or error prone than listening. Consider why audiobooks are a good workaround for people with dyslexia: They allow listeners to get the meaning while skirting the work of decoding, that is, the translation of print on the page to words in the mind. But examining how we read and how we listen shows that each is best suited to different purposes, and neither is superior. These trends might lead us to fear that audiobooks will do to reading what keyboarding has done to handwriting - rendered it a skill that seems quaint and whose value is open to debate. But today the question I get most often is, “Is it cheating if I listen to an audiobook for my book club?”Īudiobook sales have doubled in the last five years while print and e-book sales are flat. Having great book discussion questions is essential to leading a successful book club, and now that I run an online moms book club I use this lesson to avoid awkward silences (yes they can happen online) and create a lively, engaging book club meeting each month.ĭoes your book club need a little help in creating conversation? Read on for the best ways to find book discussion questions as well as my top ten generic book discussion questions that will work for anything you may choose.A few years ago, when people heard I was a reading researcher, they might ask about their child’s dyslexia or how to get their teenager to read more. She engaged our group and brought us together in a way that really made our club click. Of course, I was surrounded by other women who also loved to read so we had something in common, but more than that, the woman hosting the meeting had a great set of book discussion questions and conversation starters prepared in advance. See my Disclosure Policy for details.Īfter a few minutes of introductions, I felt right at home with my book club. I had visions of sitting around a table staring at strangers in uncomfortable silence. I had found the group on Meetup, and I had never met any of the other members. I still remember the first time I went to a book club meeting. ![]()
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