Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Reading vs. audiobooks? Need expert opinion

So DS11, dysgraphic with ALL the symptoms of stealth dyslexia, has entered 6th grade, a grade with very taxing amounts of reading. He has always been an extremely slow and reluctant reader and will only read comics for enjoyment.

I finally bought him "Huck Finn" for school as an audiobook to try for a car trip. Three hours later I had to pry the audiobook out of his hands at bedtime. He loved it! He covered 17 chapters in a day, an unprecedented feat.

So, my question is: could all of his literature assignments be replaced by audiobooks? Does the act of reading rather than listening contain part of the learning such that audiobooks should not be substituted? When I asked the 6th grade teachers if he could use audiobooks they told me he should also follow along in a book to strengthen his reading ability. Will this type of practice be worth the time and effort involved and actually improve his reading that substantially?

I should mention that he scored 160 on the oral recall portion of the WJ III. He remembers everything that goes into his ears. When he reads aloud he word substitutes at least 10% of the words and is so very slow. I suspect he actually gets better comprehension from audio because he is hearing the actual words not the hodge podge of correct and incorrect that he sees when reading.

Anyway, should he follow along even if it slows him down and steals the joy? Can I just let him listen instead of read without depriving him of important learning? Or will it be a frustrating diminishing return like handwriting practice with no serious improvement?

I am not an expert but I think you should get him an iPad. They have built in text to speech so anything on the screen can be read to him once it is highlighted. This would keep you from having to buy a hard copy and an audiobook. He could also increase the speed so his time spent listening is more similar to someone who is reading silently.

Most likely Oct/Nov time frame, Apple is expected to release their mini iPad. I'm waiting for this device to get for my dysgraphic/dyslexic kiddo. It is rumored to have Siri, so he'll be able to set audio calendar reminders as well as download audio and kindle books from our library.

And, yes, following along with print is helpful, but it also makes it less enjoyable and more like work - so we did a mix. Novels were for sheer pleasure, anything for school needed to use both audio and text if possible.

We are in the process of figuring all this out too. We started audio books for DD the summer before kindergarten. She "read" so many that she was asked to represent her school receiving an award from the governor for the Summer Reading Challenge. She listens to middle school level books and truly can't get enough of them. (Age 7 - just started 2nd grade.) When we recently redid our neuropsych eval I asked about it. He explained that the complex plots, rich language and high level vocabulary must "feel really good". He has told the school that they need to work in 2 "enrichment/anxiety" breaks per day so she can go listen to her high level books and get a break from the rest of the day that is SO difficult for her.

I am not an expert - and we are in the process of trying to figure it all out - but DD will absolutely be doing her "comprehension" work this way. If we asked her to follow along with the text she would just shut down. I assume she would give up these audio books she loves rather than have them add to her anxiety.

Please continue to post about this. I am eager to hear how other kids have worked with these. Thanks.

I would not make your son follow the audio books with reading the physical book. It sounds like the reading for enjoyment arrived with the audio books which should be encouraged. This can lead to reading physical books with the right text format later. My son started reading lots of graphic novels with larger text fonts, and now reads regular books voraciously. He has jerky eye tracking as well as CAPD and mild dyslexia.

I still get the audio book or the movie for English or other projects as a supplement to the reading. Getting the information multiple ways seems to help my son process and synthesize it well. He uses Youtube and other online sources for research for projects too, which is still ok in high school.

My HG+ dd8 struggled to learn to read due to a weakness in associative memory (linking visual cues into long-term memory). This is a different type of challenge than stealth dyslexia, but fwiw it was recommended to us that she use audiobooks for higher-level reading (reading material that matched and challenged her cognitively), but that it was also important for her to continue to develop her visual reading skills by reading without audio and reading with audio and following along with her finger - however the time she spent reading specifically to develop visual skills was supposed to be limited each day (so she doesn't get stressed out over it) and was supposed to be with *easier* level books, so that she's actually developing her skills. If she attempted to follow along on the level of books she's capable of understanding she'd not be able to, would get frustrated and give up.

With the level of reading kids get once they hit middle school, I'd probably switch to audiobooks as much as possible for language arts assignments (the type of assignment where you're analyzing and discussing content) and put together a program on the side that addresses specific reading skills that your ds needs to develop further.

I also think adding in audiobooks to take some of the stress off of reading large amounts of material for a slow reader would be really important if you're dealing with dysgraphia also, because dysgraphia has the potential to really impact the time it takes to do homework, at least that's been our dysgraphic ds' experience. I'd guesstimate he's spending at least 2-3 times the amount of time on homework his classmates do simply due to physical challenges and he's using a TON of AT.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I love the way he put this. I'm not an expert, but 'Dyslexia Advantage' is written by 2 experts. They love Audio to help develop reading and also to develop the mind in ways that reading is known for. Makes sense to me!
Love and more love -
Grinity

Reading versus listening accesses different parts of the brain, so it would make sense that one type of "reading" would be easier or harder for some kids.
However, the bigger question is if you want to solely replace with audiobooks. Long-term, you would want your child to be able to read and comprehend quickly since it will greatly limit their job choices in the work world. Maybe try both- have them read and listen to the audiobook.

No question that good reading skills pay off in adulthood. The crux of the issue for me is how much he can really improve? My understanding is that DS' struggles with reading and writing are part of his brain wiring. I have never let him use audiobooks yet and his reading improvement has been only incremental. DH, who also struggles with reading, has never used audiobooks and is the slowest, most plodding reader I have ever known. He also hates it.

So if I make him follow along will the quantum of improvement really be worth the time and struggle involved? Handwriting work with DS does not produce enough noticeable improvement to justify the time (and the angst) involved. If it really produces marked results I will heave a sigh and be the bad guy again.

Coming at this from the perspective of a much older child...


the answer to "is the tiny incremental improvement worth it?"

is a resounding YES in my estimation. This is, in fact, the entire point of all of the repetition in regular curriculum. Most kids need a lot of practice/repetition and not all of them make impressive gains all of a sudden-- ever.

I think that parents of gifted children have some trouble wrapping our understanding around the need for a LOT-- no, really a LOT-- of practice at some skill when it doesn't really seem like the progress is "worth it" or maybe even happening at all. If it is causing change, it must be happening on something like a geological time-scale.


It's even harder when that area is in contrast to the virtually instantaneous, effortless leaps in cognitive ability that we've come to anticipate with such children.

But if it's a skill that is truly necessary to your child as an adult (or young adult), and I'd argue that reading text very certainly IS such a skill; then you really can't "give up" unless there is a documented, organic reason why progress is truly impossible. If you have an expert opinion there that says "your child cannot learn to read because ____" then, okay-- adding more time and angst there is pointless.

But otherwise, I'd probably opt for a mix of things here.

Agree that your child can use audiobooks for pleasure in an UNLIMITED fashion (that is, as you'd allow any other child to read for pleasure). Also agree that the price for that freedom is that he must spend some percentage of time using the audio along with the written text for schoolwork.

That's me. While DD doesn't have any particular diagnosed disability w/r/t writing, it has been a battle of epic proportions for almost a decade. She hates to write, and loathes practicing the skill; naturally, she doesn't do it very well in light of those things. But we are finally (after years and years of firm but compassionate insistence) seeing some results for our intense efforts. It's been slow and unsatisfying, to say the least.

I guess what I'm saying is that you are unlikely to get "marked results" except by comparing progress year-by-year, not even 'month-by-month.'

Do not give up!!

Re handwriting, are you talking about actual handwriting (penmanship etc) or producing written expression?

I'm going to be coming at this from a perspective of a mom with 2e kids with challenges, so my answer will most likely be different from the answer of a parent who's child (gifted or not) has never struggled with reading or handwriting.

I also have a dh who is a very very slow reader who, as far as I can tell, has never *ever* as an adult read a book for pleasure and doesn't often read much of anything for work. I am guessing that, based on the dyslexia and dysgraphia that is showing up among his family's generation of children - both he and his father have/had some degree of dyslexia or other type of reading challenge. The good news is - he's extremely intelligent, has a *great* career, has achieved quite a bit in his life, is an amazing and loving father, a kind and considerate and caring citizen, and he's happy. He also derives quite a bit of pleasure from listening to NPR podcasts

During the course of raising a child with severe dysgraphia I've done a ton of searching for stories of successful adults who had to overcome challenges in school, and it's really actually quite easy to find stories of very successful adults with dyslexia who, even as adults, struggle with reading and rely on other adults to help - yet they are CEOs, entrepreneurs, successful, happy - usually much happier as adults than as students in school.

So fwiw, I don't for one second believe that a child who struggles with reading is doomed to a life of no-gainful-employment. As technology moves forward and becomes much more widespread in our daily lives, the whole concept of "reading" is evolving and listening to books is just going to continue to grow. Along with that, so many of our software programs and iDevices now have text-to-voice capabilities that it's not just LD kids who are using that technology - many very NT people are too And the kids who are students now happily listening instead of always reading are going to be the adults of tomorrow who are living with, working with and socializing with our reading- and writing- challenged kids. Their adult world going into and coming out of college is going to be much different than ours was.

(stepping off my momentary soapbox....)

My take on raising a child with an LD is that you remediate what you can and equally importantly you help them find strategies and accommodations to deal with the rest so that they can shine in the areas where their skills are strong and where their passions lie.

Our ds is dysgraphic. We were told in 2nd grade that we should tutor him in handwriting to the extent that he could develop it, but not push for perfect or even for more. What was most important for him was moving him to keyboarding and letting go of handwriting. I've had other parents and teachers who haven't lived with dysgraphia or don't understand view that as giving up or depriving ds of a very important skill but the reality is a) he will never become proficient at handwriting and when he uses handwriting it supresses his ability to spell/punctuate correctly and prevents him from processing the thoughts he wants to communicate and reality b) he doesn't need to use handwriting - the technology to keyboard and use voice-to-text is readily accessible to him and widely accepted in the world outside of school.

I don't disagree that reading is a very important skill, but I think that with reading challenges as well as writing, there are some kids/adults who are never going to become proficient to the level that we as parents might expect or hope that they would achieve. As has been mentioned before in this thread, audiobooks are a tremendous gift that allows students to continue to develop their reading comprehension skills while not holding them back due to decoding skills, as well as giving kids who struggle with reading a chance to feed and develop a *love* of literature and a way to access knowledge that matches their cognitive abilities.

So with reading challenges I'd approach it with a similar approach to what we were recommended for our dysgraphic ds - remediate what you can but don't make that the overwhelming only "reading" your child is exposed to - be sure he/she has an opportunity to listen to books that are a good cognitive match and also books that he/she enjoys. Once you get to whatever point it is where the extra work being put into learning reading isn't producing any results, rethink it again, is there something else that you can do.. but if not... it's ok to let it go.

There are also downsides to continuing to push remediation past the point of large positive gains - as students get older they can burn out on the remediation, and are also losing time to it that they could be spending learning in areas where learning comes easily and is fun - and this can be extremely defeating for some children. Our ds is still working with an SLP once a week for written expression but we gave up handwriting tutoring way back in 3rd grade and never *ever* looked back. The reason he's still working with his SLP is it's still helping and his abilities are still obviously developing over what they would be if he gave it up - and he's old enough now to see that it helps so *he* doesn't want to give it up.

I personally don't believe handwriting tutoring for a dysgraphic child is going to help much for most dysgraphic kids, and our neuropsych would agree with that - if you've given it a good try for your ds and you aren't seeing gains I'd move on and instead focus on having him learn to type and use other types of AT. I can't answer our question re whether or not continuing with extra work in reading will produce results for your ds - one challenge with reading is finding the type of learn-to-read program that fits the learning style and challenges each student has. The one thing I *would* absolutely do is look at building reading skills as *one* isolated area to work on, and be sure to use audiobooks etc for the other academics and for daily reading-for-comprehension etc.

polarbear

OTOH parents of NT kids also usually don't realize that endless repetition isn't necessarily going to produce results for kids who have certain types of LDs. I am not a reading expert so can only speak to dysgraphia - but the whole gist of what dysgraphia is is the inability to develop automaticity - so no matter how many times a child repeats the actual act of writing the letter "t" for instance, it never *ever* becomes automatic - they are always re-thinking in their head how to draw it every time they write it out.




But it is a very different thing to require a child who has the *capability* to learn a skill to work on it as opposed to requiring a child with a diagnosed disability to learn the skill. I *think* (and could be remembering this incorrectly) that fwxtmom's child has been diagnosed with either dyslexia/dysgraphia or a related disability.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Absolutely not suggesting that it's ever right to exert extreme pressure in an effort to pursue unrealistic expectations, particularly in light of a disability which limits performance.


This is why I noted that I'd rely upon expert opinion to say what is in fact realistic for the child in question. "Slow" progress isn't the same as "no" progress, but there's no point in depriving the child of enriching experiences just to doggedly pursue achingly slow progress, either. This is precisely why I noted that I would probably make an agreement that the child would spend a "percentage" of the time with school-related texts in tandem with audio. The text-only option is clearly not very effective for this child, but it may be too soon to know whether or not gains might be made by using the two tools together.

The percentage of time spent with text might be quite small and still be entirely appropriate. It's really not for me to say, which is why (I hoped) it was clear that determining whether or not improvement is even possible needs to be the first consideration here. My apologies if that got inadequate emphasis in my original post.

It's also true that what is ultimately "possible" isn't always known for many specific diagnoses, particularly as more is learned about the underlying causes of the disability, and better means of working around the limitation(s) are devised. Some people have better ability to develop compensatory strategies surrounding particular skills than others.

I just don't think that life is likely to ever result in little need to read text, outside of a few endeavors, so it might be limiting to give up on it. In some ways, the digital age has been much kinder to dysgraphics than to dyslexics. Maybe giving up on text is necessary, but maybe not; it's at least feasible that a limited diet might improve matters if it's a decoding problem.

I think my advice and Polarbear's are actually the same here-- use this wonderful new window into literacy and let him enjoy books!! (Worry about the text thing on it's own as a side matter.)

I am not an expert, sorry! .... but my DS is 2e and struggles a lot with reading and writing. It is very hard to see him stumbling through 2nd-grade texts while he can understand much-higher grade texts. This is all the harder as on one hand DW is on the repetition side and on the other hand, I am on the "let's help him" side, just to provide him pleasure. His speech therapist is rather on the mother's side. So as she is the expert, I have just to bow down .... Well, I never asked her about audiobooks and this topic makes feel like I should.
The fact is that I like a lot the answer of polarbear, even if it also sounds quite pessimistics since I still think that DS can make improvements in reading (well it is actually the case) and in writing (very very tiny progresses). Is it a good thing to rely on technology in the economical crisis context we are facing at least in Europe (I am afraid the future of our children is not very shiny)?

As HowlerKarma, I do not think that life can be easy for a non-reader, at least in our occidental societies. Nevertheless, I am currently reading "the dyslexic advantage" when I can find spare time. This book really gives me a kick in the a**. It helps me a lot in understanding DS and in believing in his capabilities. Especially, it opens my eyes on the fact that beneath the downsides of dyslexia, strengthes are hidden. However, the authors present a lot of success story, but how many lost children for one success story (just as in sports)?


What I personnaly think is that our dyslexic kids must take advantages of computers to lower their struggling stress. It is a chance that former pre-computer-age dyslexics did not have. Nevertheless, I will go on with making him try to read and write although I often wonder what is the point (especially for writing). It is very hard to find the right balance ...

I will try to convince DW with letting him listening to audio stuffes (books or whatever).

I think that there will be enough in life that won't have the audio version and that he will have to use his eyes to read that you shouldn't worry about it.
Does your library have Playaways? http://library.playaway.com/ I love them! No CDs to change.

I say protect the joy, not steal it. I also agree with daytripper75 in that there will be enough content out there that's not available in audiobook form that he'll get practice.

If you support his love of audio-delivered content (rather than turning it into a tired chore) he may become more motivated to overcome his challenges to access the non-audio content.

Or... here's another option: offer him a choice: a) read along with his audio book and be done, or b) listen to and enjoy the audio book and do some different reading for practice later. I think this is what I would do for my son. I'd be really reluctant to steal the joy of the audio book by forcing him to read along.

Just my two cents... I'm not a teacher (just a book worm )

I know of a few situations where kids with dysgraphia have benefitted immensely from audiobooks, even in the school setting. I think the key is to still work on reading, but give enough audio accomodations that they're not being kept from their potential in other ways. In short, let them audiobook to their heart's content, as long as there is frequent reading practice.

(For what it's worth, I think it's often hard to balance whether an accomodation is helping your child or hurting them. We're going through the same choice with keyboard v. handwriting on fine motor coordination.)

Hi, I am not an expert either, but would like to add my personal experience in the hopes that it may help others.

Although my 15yo DS was diagnosed with ADHD in 1st grade, we only recently discovered via cognitive testing that he is 2E with major challenges due to very slow processing speed, weak working memory, and graphomotor impairment (written expression). Dr. says he's a Ferrari with a Fiat transmission. School has been incredibly difficult both academically and socially every year.

His elementary school(private) had a reading program that required each student to read and log 1000 minutes over a period of 4 months from 2-5th grade (500 min in 1st grade). DS did it each year out loud through 4th grade (although I read to him out loud in the early years). It was so incredibly frustrating/agonizing for all of us but he had the will to succeed so he did it inch by inch. Did it help him? I don't really know if it helped him with reading, but he learned to succeed through tenacity and persistence. I believe he actually learned to read at the end of 3rd grade when I gave him a Hardy Boys book. He still collects them and at 15yo reads them at night when he can't sleep. He is now a HS sophomore with a high vocabulary but is still a slow reader. But he can read, YAY!

Now about the audio books. When DS was around 3-4yo, I bought some Disney book/cassette tape combos at a garage sale. He loved having the book and listening to the story at the same time and learned to turn the pages at the right time from the audio cues. Encouraged at the spark I saw in him, I found more and more of these at thrift shops, etc. He had a voracious appetite for listening to stories and for learning about various subjects via audio. Over the years I found age-appropriate audio materials without the companion books. An example is the dramatized Narnia audio books and Lord of the Rings Audio, but I also found many history and science type lectures on audio. DS has not just learned a ton via audio over the years, it's also given him the "escape" that others might have via reading a book. Although he wouldn't necessarily go pick up a book to read to calm himself down during frustrating times (except Hardy Boys), he would listen to a story .... and he still does, especially Narnia. I'm very happy that I provided him these resources even though I didn't understand the 2E, graphomotor impairment, slow processing issues, etc. I see the audio solution as highly valuable, but I also provided him with reading books that contained lots of pictures since he is visual to keep his tactile senses engaged. I think this has also been a good thing.

This summer he had to read "Gathering Blue" for homework. I checked out both the audio and paperback versions from the library. We listened to the audio version in the car, then I found an online quiz to help him study.... I printed out questions for 2-3 chapters per day and he wrote very brief answers on paper after looking them up in the paperback if he couldn't remember. Then after I got home from work we reviewed his answers through a discussion.

Gotta go, but I hope this helps some of you with younger children to see the possibilities for your kids into the teen years. And feel free to let me know if you have any other questions about our experience.

My DS has just started a program in a school of 8 students within a high school of 110 students. It's strictly for 2E's just like him and I'm very hopeful - they "get him."

I appreciate the many thoughtful comments on this thread, Polar in particular, thank you for your insights.

Thanks everyone for all the great feedback and suggestions. I have decided to go straight down the middle: audiobooks for assigned novels and audiobooks with simultaneous reading (when audio is available) for textbooks.

DS was having a meltdown about having to read 4 chapters of history and prepare Cornell notes for each chapter on Saturday ("It will take ALL DAY Mom!") when I went online and found an audio version of his history text. Problem solved! I was ecstatic to find this and he was able to complete the assignment is about 2 1/2 hours while reading and listening.

DS is even starting to think of audio as a solution for notetaking difficulties. The science teacher was talking too fast for dysgraphic DS to make notes of the test review class so he decided to audio record the review on his computer. He then transcribed this at home which was an excellent study technique. I can't even tell you how proud I am that he thought of this and solved his problem himself. It's like . . . progress.

That is TERRIFIC.

You can tell him that this is a technique which MANY college students learn to use in order to get the most out of rapidly moving lectures. So he's using a technique that many of his NT peers will eventually adopt at some point, too, in all liklihood.

Nice problem-solving!

A next step would be approaching teachers in advance and asking if he can record, so he and they all have a plan about it.

DeeDee