The title says it all. It's a debate I have been on both sides of over the years...as a teacher, a teacher educator, a reader, an author.... And notice I didn't say "as a listener."
Because I'm still not sure. If I'm listening, I may not be seeing the words, but I am hearing them, feeling them, chewing on them. And they are tucked in my memory maybe more indelibly than when I am just seeing them. It's why I STILL read to my college students. It's a special experience.
Back in the late 90s, an ELA teacher colleague and I were discussing some of the amazing YA books we had in our classrooms. We were excited about books on tape for our struggling readers and near the end of my tenure at Oakland, we had books on CD. MANY of our kiddos devoured Harry Potter that way. To save time and to get through books faster, I often listened to them while grading and prepping for lessons...and I could even speed up the voice. It was, and still is, a win-win.
But I have had several teachers and teacher educator friends say that listening to a book doesn't count as reading it. A friend recently said that seeing the words is the only true form of reading. She countered that not knowing a word or how the words are put on the page (think Jason Reynolds' Long Way Down) could cause confusion if I'm not seeing it how the author intended it. Valid point. I've played with words on the page in stories I've written as well.
In a book group I'm part of, I posed the question to mostly retired educators of literacy. It was a resounding YES...listening is reading, even if the experience is different. But the same question posed to current educators at a Writing Project meeting was a split decision. Some said it counted as reading and several said no, that if you're not taking it in with your eyes, it isn't reading.
I'm still undecided, but I know as an author, I have ZERO preference how my "readers" take in my books. Listen to it, look at it, have someone else read it to you. It doesn't matter to me, as long as my story finds its way into your brain.
For me, listening fills my senses. As an ADHD person, that's important. I love sitting down with a good hard copy of a book, but it's super easy for me to get distracted. I even love having the physical book in front of me and the audio playing at the same time. A dear friend can no longer see to read, so audio books are her savior. So every format serves a valid purpose.
I don't need to settle the debate, because I think "reading" in all its incarnations is personal. But I'm curious as "readers" what you think... can you say you read a book and can add it to your list if you used your ears and not your eyes?
