Audio Book

When I was growing up I used to hear a certain phrase, quite a lot.  I would see it in print and even saw television commercials about it.  The phrase was, "reading is fundamental".  At the time I guess it made sense.  I mean, we do need to know how to read.  Life can be very tough and for those people that grow up in a poverty situation, life could be just one big struggle.  And there are always people in the world that can and will take advantage of you, if they notice that you lack certain knowledge.  So, yes reading will kind of put you on some level with the world around you. 

But as I look deeper into the phrase, "reading is fundamental", I start to wonder.  What is it fundamental for?  We know education is important.  It's been documented that people who have a college degree, will make more money over the course of their life then people who don't.  And that's the key, money.  Money is very important in this society; it plays a large role in your status and even in how other people treat you.  But is reading fundamental in acquiring money, which plays such a large part in our lives; well, the answer is no.  There have been documented cases of athletes, going to college and receiving degrees, then going on to earn millions of dollars playing pro sports and then in the end it was discovered that these athletes didn't know how to read.  This world is full of successful people who didn't even finish high school; their lack of reading skills didn't stop their success. 

We know reading is important, but is it more important in our survival, or just a safety net to guard us against those who might take advantage of us. 

In today's fast paced world, reading almost sounds archaic.  Anyway, why would you want to read, when you can just listen.  The world has given us the audio book.  The audio book is as it sounds, it is a book that is read aloud and is recorded on cassette tapes, CDs and in digital formats.  Some audio books are read by actors.  Some books are recorded using a cast of characters, including music and sound effects.  The audio book fits right into today's society.  You can rarely move ten feet and not see someone with a cell phone to their ear, or someone with headphones on, so the audio book makes perfect sense. 

There are a lot of people praising the audio book as a great tool in helping kids learn to read.  Let's face it, it's a lot easier to get a kid to put on headphones, then it is to get them to count syllables.  Studies have suggested that audio books help to expand the students' vocabulary, because they can listen to books that would normally be too hard for them to read.  With a student's attention span being short, educators are hopeful that the audio book can rein in the students' wondering minds. 

There will probably always be some debate over which is a better learning process, audio books or the old way of learning to read.  Listening is good and easy and maybe fun, but is it really a substitute for looking at a word, learning how to say it, learning how to tear the word apart and put it back together?  Are audio books a great tool, or just another educational cop-out?