To improve literacy skills, first improve listening skills

"Listening has been identified as a critical work-related skill but it has

been almost totally ignored in national assessments of adult literacy. 2008
is the 100th anniversary of E. B. Huey's 1908 classic book, "The Psychology
and Pedagogy of Reading" in which he stated that, "The child comes to his
first reader with his habits of spoken language fairly well formed, and
these habits grow more deeply set with every year. His meanings inhere in
this spoken language and belong but secondarily to the printed symbols...."

It seems incredible that such an obvious truth, and one that was described 100 years ago, has been neglected in the fight to improve literacy. The less well I read a language, the more I vocalize when reading. Listening, or hearing, or auding as you put it, is the foundation for learning to read, whether for our first language, or for subsequent languages. The power of the MP3 player makes auding easier to do than ever.

Here in Canada there is much public posturing about fighting literacy. There are spelling bees, and  book reading promotions. Much money is raised by well intentioned people. The results are disappointing.

I believe that far more could be achieved if there were one website with a vast collection of sound files and transcripts, of all kinds. These should consists of ordinary conversations between people of different ages and interests,radio programs, songs, articles on different subjects, including civics, and even university courses. The download of the sound files and text files should be free and their distribution unrestricted. The site should be the subject of a massive promotion campaign. Friendships and mentoring relationships could be built up via such a site.

I often hear that the adult ESL learner or person with low literacy cannot afford a computer or MP3 player. I do not believe this is a real obstacle. There are libraries, schools, and other places to access computers. An MP3 player is not expensive. It is simply a matter of getting people to realize that they need to listen in order to read, and after listening they need to read.

Comments

[Evan]

I strongly recommend for students visit BBC web sight: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/
There are a great number of news issues, TV and radio records with scripts, texts and so on.