One of the takeaways from this pandemic is that many of us benefit from audiobooks. This school year the high school and middle school have provided access to Sora, by OverDrive, for our students and staff. It has been a truly welcome addition to our library offerings. Students can access eBooks and audiobooks through the Sora site on their devices. They don't need to worry about returning titles because titles automatically disappear off their record after three weeks. Many students have reported both enjoying listening to a story and also getting more out of the story by listening as well as reading.
The following excerpt is taken from a recent School Library Journal article titled An Ear for Reading: Audiobooks Take Center Stage in the Classroom by Melanie Kletter:
OverDrive’s Sora app, introduced in 2018, allows students to check out ebooks and audiobooks from their school collection and also connects students in schools with resources at public libraries. At schools using Sora, audiobook check-outs grew 61 percent in 2020 over 2019, according to OverDrive. The largest growth was seen in juvenile nonfiction and young adult nonfiction. Sora is now available in about 44,000 schools, including New York City public schools, the largest school district in the country.
“We have reached a new level of awareness about what digital books can do,” says Angela Arnold, general manager of OverDrive Education. “This year, teachers were looking for materials that kids can handle on their own. There is more recognition that kids learn differently from each other. Audiobooks are a powerful tool for personalized learning.”
When it comes to using audiobooks as a learning tool in schools, there has long been debate about whether audiobooks count as “real” reading, since students are not decoding and figuring out the words as they read. However, researchers and educators now recognize the many benefits of audiobooks for learners of all ages and abilities.
“Audiobooks are reading,” says Denise Johnson, a professor of reading education at William & Mary who studies literacy learning and conducts research on the uses of technology in education. “The idea that we must decode in order to read is an unfair way to think about it. The goal is comprehension.”
When kids can’t decode, it can make a book inaccessible, says Johnson. “But just because a kid can’t read at a high level, that doesn’t mean they can’t understand and comprehend at a high level. Using audiobooks opens up access and levels the playing field. Kids can all listen to the same book and then can talk and discuss it and have rich conversations.”
Audiobooks also help with fluency, since students hear the way a story should sound when it is read. This benefits students who struggle with reading as well as students who are English language learners.
The fact that audiobooks can be accessed digitally in schools has also been a huge boon this year. “The pandemic, fortunately—and unfortunately—has pushed educators to be aware of digital resources that they had not been aware of,” says Johnson. “As parents took on responsibility for a great deal of teaching, the audiobook was sometimes the only thing they could get their hands on.”
Below please find the statistics for our BMS users accessing OverDrive this school year.
