One reading technique that I practice whenever possible is immersion reading. What is immersion reading? It is listening to the audiobook while following along in a copy of the text (either in the traditional printed format or an electronic version).
Benefits of immersion reading:
- Great for planning. If you want to get through a book in a week, you can calculate how many hours you will need to read each night to reach your goal.
- Vocabulary building. When you think back to when you first started to read, you might recall your teacher reading to you as you follow along in a book. Further, you are more likely to remember something that you see and hear versus only seeing or only hearing. How likely are you to use a new word if you stumble over it while reading or if you hear it while someone reads to you?
- Increased reading speed. If you read for a long time (like I do), your reading speed will likely decrease over time. With the audiobook component, you can keep a constant speed.
- Don’t lose your place. If you are practicing immersion reading on the Amazon Fire or Kindle app, you have the option of real-time highlighting. When the book is being read aloud, you have the option of each word being highlighted in the text. Think a singalong, just for books. This is great if you tend to lose your place or if your eyes tend to wander.
- Better tracking. Audible will automatically track how long you have been listening so that you can track your progress toward your reading goals.
Amazon Devices Supporting Immersion Reading
Don’t get caught with a device that doesn’t support immersion reading! As of this blog post, the following devices from Amazon support Immersion Reading:
- Kindle App for iOS
- Kindle App for Android
- Fire Tablets 2nd Gen and above
Please be advised that the Kindle Oasis does not support immersion reading! I purchased this device, and Amazon confirmed that immersion reading is not supported. When I asked if they could just flash the device remotely, they told me that they could not.
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