SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
You know, we cover a lot of debates on this program about policy, about ethics, about the law, about which is the best track by BJ Leiderman, who does our theme music. Here's another debate that elicits strong opinions. Does listening to an audiobook count as reading? Andrew Limbong, host of NPR's Book of the Day podcast, takes a look and a listen.
ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: This question - whether audiobooks count as reading - goes as far back as the '90s, when books on tape hit it big. But what do people today think? According to an NPR-Ipsos poll from earlier this year, 40% of American adults thought, quote, "listening to audiobooks is not a form of reading."
MALLORY NEWELL: It's not a majority, to be clear, but it's a significant number.
LIMBONG: That's Mallory Newell, vice president of public polling at Ipsos.
NEWELL: It's older people over age 65, it's men and it's those without a four-year degree that are more likely to say that listening to audiobooks isn't a form of reading.
LIMBONG: All right. So that's the polling, but what does the science say? Beth Rogowsky is a professor at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania who studies auditory and visual learning styles. In 2016, she co-authored a study of adults comparing comprehension rates between listening to an audiobook and reading on an e-reader, like a Kindle.
BETH ROGOWSKY: We found that there was no significant difference between reading a book using a Kindle or listening to a book or doing both - listening and reading simultaneously.
LIMBONG: In other words, participants retained pretty much the same amount of information whether they read a book or listened to it.
ROGOWSKY: Which is exciting news for people who join a book club but want to be able to fold laundry while they're reading the book.
LIMBONG: There's a big but here. The study was done using adults who knew how to read. Rogowsky's done some further research looking at school-aged kids and learning styles and found that self-described auditory learners scored worse on comprehension rates across the board. That is, they did worse understanding and recalling information that they read and listened to.
ROGOWSKY: That really leads you to believe that when you are learning to read, you really need to have the experience reading. When we tailor to a student's learning style and we're just giving them auditory formats, we are not reinforcing the reading skills that are so essential to becoming a proficient reader.
LIMBONG: So to sum up, for most of us, it doesn't matter whether we read on a page or listen to an audiobook. But for kids learning to read, Rogowsky recommends picking up a book.
Andrew Limbong, NPR News.
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