Audiobooks, Listening Is Not Reading (And That’s Fine)

There’s a curious muddle creeping into our national conversation about children, books and literacy. It surfaced today when Queen Camilla, launched Scotland’s Year of Reading, appeared (via a Beano cartoon version of herself) to declare that audiobooks count as reading too.

Outrage. mockery. culture-war foam…well in the Telegraph comments…

But beneath the noise lies a more interesting - and perhaps more important - question: what do we actually mean by “reading”, and why does it matter that we get this right for children?

Storytime

It's a Mash up! Two Different Things Quietly Squeezed Together

What’s happening here is not a single argument, but two separate ones being blurred into one.

The first is cultural: how do we keep people - especially children - connected to stories, language and books in a world full of screens?

The second is educational: how do children learn to read?

Audiobooks sit comfortably in the first conversation.They are far more awkward in the second.

Audiobooks, Reading and Listening are Not the Same Thing

From a developmental point of view, reading is not just “understanding a story”. It is a physical, cognitive skill that has to be built - letter by letter, sound by sound.

When children read print, their brains are doing several things at once:

• decoding symbols into sounds

• mapping those sounds onto meaning

• recognising spelling patterns

• learning punctuation, rhythm and syntax

• training the eye to move across text

Listening bypasses all of that.

Audiobooks activate language comprehension pathways, but they do not build decoding. For fluent adult readers, that distinction barely registers. For children between roughly four and eight, it is everything.

This is why phonics, decodable books and real print still matter - and why no serious literacy programme replaces them with audio alone.

Where Audiobooks Genuinely Help

This doesn’t mean audiobooks are the enemy. Far from it.

Used properly, they are powerful:

• for older children who can already read

• for reluctant readers who need confidence with longer texts

• for children with dyslexia, visual impairment or fatigue

• for expanding vocabulary and modelling expressive language

Listening to a novel while following the text can be particularly effective. So can using audio to supplement - not substitute - print.

But that “supplement” word matters.

Why the Definition is Being Stretched

Organisations like the National Literacy Trust increasingly talk about “everything counting as reading” - from scanning lyrics to listening to audiobooks.

This isn’t stupidity. It's a strategy.

Library closures, falling reading-for-pleasure rates and digital distraction have created a genuine crisis. Broadening the definition of reading makes participation look healthier than it is.

The intention is good. The messaging, however, is dangerously loose.

If everything counts as reading, then reading itself starts to disappear as a distinct, learned skill.

Comics are not Audiobooks - and That Matters

It’s telling that this debate surfaced via The Beano. Comics absolutely are reading. They demand decoding, sequencing, inference and visual literacy. They train the eye and brain together.

Audiobooks don’t.

Lumping them together under a single, comforting slogan may be rhetorically convenient - but it muddies an already fragile understanding of how children actually become readers.

A Cleaner, Kinder Distinction

We don’t need to sneer at audiobooks, and we don’t need to pretend they’re something they’re not.

A simpler framework would help everyone:

Reading (literacy-building):

• print books

• comics and graphic novels

• shared reading with visible text

• subtitles and captions

Language engagement (valuable, but different):

• audiobooks

• storytelling

• podcasts

• radio drama

Both matter. They just don’t do the same job.

Why this Matters More than Semantics

Calling listening “reading” may feel inclusive, but for younger children it risks lowering expectations at exactly the moment they need precision, patience and practice.

Learning to read is hard. It always has been. There are no shortcuts.

Audiobooks are wonderful companions - on long journeys, in the garden, late at night, and later in a child’s reading life.

But reading is reading. And children deserve our honesty about that.

What is a “reading scheme”

A reading scheme is a structured, levelled set of books used in schools to support early reading. Most modern UK schemes are now:

• phonics-aligned (especially in England)

• progressive (children move through colour bands or stages)

• used alongside phonics programmes, not instead of them

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Crucially: a reading scheme is not the same thing as a phonics programme, though publishers often sell them together.

The major UK reading schemes (in real classrooms)

Oxford Reading Tree (OUP)

The old giant - still everywhere

• Famous for Biff, Chip & Kipper

• Originated pre-phonics dominance; heavily revised since

• Now offered in:

  • phonics-aligned strands

  • decodable readers

  • traditional patterned texts

Strengths

• Familiar to teachers and parents

• Huge backlist

• Narrative continuity children like

Criticism

• Earlier editions encouraged guessing from pictures

• Needs careful selection to avoid “mixed messages” in early decoding

Still widely used, especially in maintained primaries.

Collins Big Cat

The current classroom workhorse

• Fully colour-banded

• Strong phonics alignment

• Includes:

  • fiction

  • non-fiction

  • graphic and photographic texts

Strengths

• Flexible

• Easy to match to phonics stages

• Broad subject matter (science, history, nature)

Often used as the main scheme, even where phonics comes from elsewhere.

Pearson Bug Club

The digital-first hybrid

• Print + online platform

• Built-in quizzes and tracking

• Popular in MATs and tech-confident schools

Strengths

• Appeals to reluctant readers

• Home–school link is strong

• Data-rich for teachers

Criticism

• Screen reliance

• Can drift toward “task completion” rather than reading pleasure

Rigby Star

The quiet veteran

• Long-established

• Used particularly in KS1 and early KS2

• More common in some local authorities and legacy settings

Strengths

• Broad range of text types

• Familiar progression

Less dominant now, but still present.

Schemes tightly bound to phonics programmes

These are not general reading schemes — they are decodable-only, designed to match a specific phonics sequence.

Read Write Inc Phonics (Ruth Miskin)

• Highly structured

• Books only use taught sounds

• Hugely influential in England

Strengths

• Excellent for early decoding

• Reduces guessing

Limit

• Narrow reading diet if not supplemented

Jolly Phonics Readers

• Matches Jolly Phonics teaching order

• Common in EYFS and Reception

Strengths

• Clear, systematic

• International reach

Letters and Sounds (legacy)

• Not a scheme originally, but many decodable readers are aligned to it

• Still referenced in many schools

Colour bands (the system underneath)

Most schemes use colour bands to indicate difficulty:

• Pink → Red → Yellow → Blue → Green → Orange → Turquoise → Purple → Gold(Exact sequences vary slightly.)

Important truth:Colour ≠ phonics stage.A book can be “easy” by colour but still linguistically unsuitable for early decoders if it encourages guessing.

How schools actually use these (the honest version)

In practice, most UK primaries use a blend:

• One phonics programme (e.g. Read Write Inc)

• One main reading scheme (often Big Cat or Oxford)

• Decodable readers early on

• Free readers and library books as soon as decoding is secure

The skill lies in timing — not withholding rich books too long, but not offering them too early.

A quiet but important shift

Over the past 15 years, UK schools have moved from:

“Children learn to read by reading books”

to:

“Children learn to read by learning to decode, then reading books”

That shift explains why audiobooks, schemes, phonics and ‘real books’ keep getting tangled in debate.

They are different tools, for different stages, doing different jobs.