The Benefit of Utilizing Audiobooks with Students who are Struggling Readers

Many students start school unprepared to read and learn. They struggle with reading semantics and comprehension. The study examined the benefit of utilizing audiobooks to assist struggling readers. The research problem addressed in this study was the effect of audiobooks on reading comprehension. The study was guided by the research question: Is there a significant increase in reading comprehension scores for students who listen to audiobooks than for students who do not? The study began by randomly dividing 100 students in Grades 2 and 5 into 2 groups. All students took a STAR pretest to determine their beginning reading levels. The students in Group A (control) read written books and took a comprehension test over each book. The students in Group B (experimental) audio read the same books and took the same comprehension tests as those by Group A. Following treatment, all students took a posttest to determine if reading comprehension had improved. Analysis by the factorial repeated measures ANOVA reported no significant increase in reading comprehension scores for students who listened to audiobooks compared to students who did not. The analysis showed that the Grade 2 students who listened to audiobooks made greater gains than the Grade 5 students who also listened to audiobooks. The findings may inspire reading specialists and school administrators to advocate for professional development in helping teachers gain knowledge or develop new reading instruction techniques that help students improve their reading comprehension levels. Audiobooks can motivate students while improving their reading skills. The findings support the need for social justice and change by providing a way to meet contemporary educational challenges.