Opinion | Is Listening to a Book the Same Thing as Reading It?

“A 1985 study found listening comprehension correlated strongly with reading comprehension — suggesting that those who read books well would listen to them well. In a 1977 study, college students who listened to a short story were able to summarize it with equal accuracy as those who read it.”

Simplifying, two basic processes happen when you read: There is decoding, or translating the strings of letters into words with meaning. And then there is language processing, or comprehension.

Decoding is specific to reading but by about late elementary school, decoding becomes so second-nature that it isn’t any additional “work” for your brain. It happens automatically.

Regardless of which reading method you use, the evidence points towards the fact that speed comes at the sacrifice of understanding.

Depending on what you’re reading, this might not necessarily be a bad thing: If you’re trying to get through a dry piece to capture a few key points or you are going through a short piece that’s easy to understand, speed reading strategies might make sense.

1. Choose different reading pieces for different occasions: articles and light reads can be reserved for short periods. Books that require less focus can be listened to in audio format etc.
2. Incorporate reading into your daily habit: put a book on your bedside table.
3. Share your reads with others, to help you to better understand and appreciate what you read.
4. Reflect on your reading: take notes or check out films that are based on novels (to compare interpretations).

We often struggle to find time to read. That's why we need to start small.

• Read five pages of a book that interests you every day. When you are comfortable with five pages, try ten, then twenty.
• The book should interest you. Reading a book of your choice makes the activity a pleasure to look forward to.
• It helps to keep the book, audiobook app, or e-reader on you. Then, when you have some downtime, you can read instead of playing a smartphone game.

Research found that audiobooks stimulate the brain differently but just as deeply as reading.

With print books, you need to provide the voice, imagine the tune and rhythm of speech, the intonation, stress of syllables, and so on. All this gets provided for you when listening to audio. With audiobooks, you're using different methods to decode and understand it. But it still deeply impacts your thoughts and feelings.