Reading by listening as a study technique – find the right method for you
In recent years, reading by listening has become a widespread practice in higher education. Reading by listening involves listening to course literature read out by either a human or a speech synthesiser. The availability of study materials in a variety of formats is a welcome development, but you may need to experiment with your listening to find the right study technique.
Increasing numbers of students are listening to course literature and practice materials instead of or in combination with traditional reading. For some students, access to recorded course literature and accessible documents is central to their participation in education on equal terms. However, many other students use reading by listening as one way of coping with a heavy reading load.
Despite the growing number of listening readers, there is still little research on the practice itself and almost none on reading by listening in higher education. This means that if you are reading by listening, you will need to experiment and build your own personalised toolbox – including both study techniques and technical solutions. Your reading strategies should suit you and your reading situation. In this text, we provide tips on what you can do to progress as a competent listener.
Reading for learning requires strategies
Reading for learning in an academic context is challenging. You need to have a large vocabulary and a good understanding of terms. You need to be able to plan your reading, sort out relevant information from large amounts of text and memorise key concepts. In addition, you need to be able to compare different texts with each other and reflect critically without distorting the reasoning of others. In short, you must be a very active reader with good study skills.
There is a kind of assumption that reading by listening is easier than reading with the eyes, for everyone. But it could just as easily be the other way round. Reading by listening demands a great deal in terms of digital literacy, working memory and concentration – while the content of the text is as challenging as if you were reading it in a physical book. So, it is not necessarily easier, but different.
Build your toolkit
Take some time to examine your digital toolbox. What can you do with the tools available? Which settings can you adjust? Are there any new programs you can try? All students at Lund University have free access to several digital tools that can be used for reading by listening.
Information about accessibility tools for students
An important reading skill in higher education is to prioritise texts and to read different passages with different levels of attention, depending on your reading goals and prior knowledge. To be able to make such a prioritisation, you first need to be able to skim the test. Experiment to see how the program you are using can help you with that. Some programs allow you to jump around in the text based on headings and use bookmarks to return to important sections more easily. Some can also be set it up so that, for example, you do not have to listen to all the references in the text – this will make it quicker to get through less important chapters.
Course literature often contains visual components that are difficult to reproduce verbally, such as statistics, information graphics and illustrations. This may require you to supplement the listening reading either with physical material or with other programs that can handle that type of literature better. Choose your method of reading depending on how the text you are reading is organised.
Some programs allow those who can read with their eyes to follow the visual text on the screen as it is read out. This can have advantages. For example, it may be easier to get an overview of the text and to concentrate. There are also indications that people with reading difficulties can improve their reading speed in this way. At the same time, the effort involved in multitasking can be overwhelming, especially if one's own reading speed is different from that of the voice reading aloud. To reiterate, this research has not been done on reading in higher education, so you are best placed to decide what works for you. See what is possible with the technology you have available and evaluate how it works.
Bonus tip – listen to your own text!
Another use of reading by listening is as a tool in your own writing process. The speech synthesiser can become a straightforward writing buddy, reading your text aloud to you exactly as you have written it. It does not fill in gaps with its own preconceptions or skip complicated or boring passages. When listening, you are confronted with your own text in a concrete way, which can help you both to proofread and to get new ideas.
Take notes as you listen, highlighting things that sound wrong or odd to you and writing down things you think of that you can add or cut. Of course, you can get the same effect by asking a friend or helpful family member to read your text aloud to you. The drawback with humans is that they are harder to pause and they can get impatient if they have to wait for you to write down your ideas. Of course, there are advantages too – people are often more fun to study with, for example.