Blogger: Wendy Lawton
I am practically addicted to a brand new reading experience. Well, perhaps that’s not exactly true since I remember loving rainy day lunch at St. John’s Lutheran School in San Francisco. The school was housed in a turn of the century mansion on Van Ness Avenue. As with most schools in a metropolitan setting, play area was limited. Rainy days were spent in our classrooms. Mrs. Broga would tell us to take out a book and we would follow each word with our finger while she read aloud. It was much like the stories read to us on our parents’ laps. The rhythm of the words and the language did more to instill the love of story craft in us than anything else.
But I promised a brand new reading experience. So here goes: I was probably one of the earliest adopters of Amazon’s Whisper Sync for Voice technology. Here’s how Amazon explains it:
When you can’t read, listen
Add Audible narration to your Kindle books
Now you can switch between reading your Kindle books and listening to Audible narration in the Kindle App.
Just pop in your headphones, tap the button, and keep the story going… in the car, in the gym, in the kitchen, or wherever your day takes you. Whenever your eyes are occupied but your mind is free, your story is ready for listening.
Experience Immersion Reading
Read and listen simultaneously with real-time highlighting. It’s called Immersion Reading and that’s what it does: immerse you in a story by narrating and highlighting the text as you read. It sparks an extra connection that boosts engagement, comprehension, and retention, taking you deeper into the book.
Read at your own pace
Immersion Reading is great for children learning to read, readers learning English as a second language, and anyone looking to boost their reading comprehension.
That’s how they describe it but I’ve found that I love listening to the gifted narrators while following the highlighted text. As a writer it lets you experience a book in two modalities at once. I’ve found that it allows me to see how the writer tells the story as well as chooses words that make the reading almost musical.
It doesn’t hurt that the technology turns the page for you as well. Hands-free reading!
As I’ve probably said too many times already, I’ve been on a mystery kick for a while. You should hear Inspector Gamache (Louise Penny) read with the appropriate French-Canadian accent or Commissario Guido Brunetti (Donna Leon) read by an Italian.
Or even more delicious, try one of the books in No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency narrated by Lisette Lecat with her perfect Botswana intonation.
Of course, if you don’t believe me, you can try one for free. Amazon is offering a free book– Phantom of the Opera– with Whisper Sync for Voice so that you can test drive the technology first.
So what do you think? Is this a reading experience that would appeal to you? Have you tried it? Let’s talk. . .
Disclaimer: I am not a representative of Amazon, nor is Books & Such intending to advertise for them. It’s just that this reading experience is like nothing else.
What fun! When I was teaching, we used to read and listen at the same time, physical books in-hand and audio on the cd player. It was such a neat shared experience. Now, I’m an audiobook addict in order to fit more reading in during a busy season of life, but I haven’t tried what you’re suggesting here. I will look forward to it; it sounds like a wonderful idea!
I also love audio books but if I’m not doing something physical while reading, I get lulled into daydreaming or sleep. This way I’m engaged in the story.
One of our sons learned to read tactically. His brain reversed letters up-and-down and side-to-side. Whole words, too. “Help” and “play” were the same to him. The solution? Sandpaper flashcards–he traced each letter with his finger, and the letters stayed put. Then he graduated to a 3×5 card with a slit that let him see just three or four words as a time. Finally, he held the card under a line, covering the words yet to come. This process took years. To this day, understandably, he reads only for information, never for pleasure.
*I wonder if this technology would help people like him learn to read. There’s something about a screen that hinders him, but your video, Wendy, takes me back to the card with the slit.
*This same child had no trouble with numbers. 6s and 9s never did the reversal dance for him. I asked the neurologist, “How can that be?” He explained that numbers are processed in a different part of the brain. I wonder if screens are processed in a different part of the brain.
*For me, immersion reading would be fun. For non-readers like our son, it could be a godsend.
So interesting, Shirley. I wonder if he would try as an experiment?
My son also had an issue learning to read because of an eye-teaming problem. The words would float around on the page for him, so a large block of text was physically exhausting. After a lot of therapy, he eventually mastered it, but still doesn’t do much pleasure reading outside of graphic novels. Now he’s a high school senior and his lit teacher assigned Frankenstein. He discovered a free audible version, so he was listening to it while he followed along in the print book. When he first told me, he was concerned it might be considered cheating. I think it’s brilliant! It can only increase his comprehension. It’s not like he’s reading a comic book, cliff notes, or watching a movie version.
That’s an intriguing suggestion, Wendy. For 30+ years he’s just assumed, “Books aren’t for me.” How to get around that roadblock? That’s the question.
On Friday, yes, a few days ago, we had a 12 hour drive home from Stop #3 on our family vacation.
Before we left at 7:37am, I downloaded Love’s Reckoning by Laura Frantz on Audible.
It was a blissful drive, to say the least.
That’s great that you could decide on one title for all.
Interesting. From the writer’s perspective – I ‘hear’ my characters so clearly that it might be little short of traumatic to have them read in a voice I didn’t choose. Anyone else feel this way?
I know many authors like to chime in about the narrators. After you’ve listened to a number of narrated books you begin to be a bit of critic of narrators. The best are absolutely flawless. I prefer that narrators not try to make their voices mimic the opposite sex but just give them their characteristic intonation or accent.
It was pretty painful for me, just because I imagine my character’s voices differently. I don’t think it was a problem with the narrator.
I love audio books and sometimes choose them just because of the narrator. What’s jarring is to have the narrator change in the middle of a series.
I love listening to books. I don’t buy many of the Audible books (I’d go broke!), but I listen to my Kindle Fire read to me. It’s slightly more monotone than expressive, but because I can do this now, I am getting through a lot more books on my Kindle. 🙂 It’s not as good as Audible, but it’s okay for listening to.
*I can see how being able to hear an authentic accent of a reader of a book from a certain place or time would really add to the listening experience.
*When I drive, I listen (and I’ve been known to subject my boys to this too . . . on occasion). When I’m cooking dinner, or cleaning, I listen. I LOVE being able to “read” a book in this way.
I joined audible years ago (8.99 per month) and I get one credit per month toward books, That means I get a $22.99 Audible book for the $8.99. If I’m busy and don’t have time for a book, the credits add up. I can use those credits for Whisper Sync for Voice. The narration is often art that enriches the book. The best narration ever? The Help.
Yes, I definitely agree. Good narration enhances the enjoyment of a book. 🙂 I may have to splurge to listen to The Help. I sure enjoyed reading it!
I’ve tried having my Kindle read a Bible to me before Audible. It read all the verse numbers and footnoting letters. It was very distracting. Does Audible solve that problem?
Audio books are totally different from that Kindle words-to-speech thing.
These are professional narrators– often stage actors– who do the reading.
But if you want the all time best narrated Bible I’d recommend Max McLean’s reading. We love it– those rich Scottish tones. When he reads, I hear God’s word in a whole new way since he doesn’t speed up over well known passages like we tend to do but he gives each phrase it’s time to sink in.
I love the audible, especially when we are traveling. I listened to the Narnia books that way. I would love to do this, be the voice, but it would have to be a Texas setting, of course. 🙂 My hubs doesn’t like to read much, so I’ve been reading friends’ novels to him. He really enjoys it, and I think it’s helping him see why I love writing so much. But I’ve developed a little rhythm in reading aloud … and I so enjoy it, reading aloud to him. 🙂
You are right to realize that the accent, intonation needs to match the book but most narrators have a number of perfect accents in their repertoire.
Audio versions can be a lot of fun. My daughter loved to read Nancy Drew along with an audio cassette when she was in 2nd grade. I’m sure it helped her reading skills, and we listened to the cassette tapes when we took long trips. We still do. We ended up with 10 of them. The Secret of Phantom Ranch is still a favorite even though she’s in college.
*The only bad thing was the way Nancy would decide to check something out that could easily get her killed before she would call the police. It became a family joke that doing something potentially fatal was doing a Nancy Drew.
That’s funny, Carol. 🙂 I used to love Nancy Drew too. 🙂 But that was back before there were cassettes of her stories. 🙂
How fun. Don’t you love it when you can use a literary phase that only your family understands?
My girls, when they spied a great looking guy, would always turn to the other and say, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
I guess for me to know whether I would like this or not would depend on if this technology was available on a kindle that was just a basic reader without a backlit screen. I have the basic Nook that does not have a backlit screen, it doesn’t count as screentime for my children and doesn’t bother my eyes. I adore it! But I’m not going to enjoy reading on a computer-like screen so that is the limiting factor for me. Both my husband and mother love audio books, but it is hard for me to find a moment when the house is quiet enough to listen to an audio book, when the house actually is quiet…after bedtime…I’d rather just read.
I do know it is an app that crosses many devices. So if your device accepts apps, I think it will work. I sometimes download the audio to my phone and the book to my Paperwhite and they still sync across those different platforms. But usually I have it all on my iPad.
I just bought a new plain Kindle reader (not the Kindle Fire tablet) with a 14 hour battery life and b&w display. It will read to me so it has audio capability. That might suit you perfectly.
I enjoy listening to books when I take my daily walk. Right now I’m in the middle of “The Painter’s Daughter” by Julie Klassen. The story is wonderful and the male narrator is fantastic! As a child I had a hard time listening to the teacher read stories in class, so I didn’t know if I would enjoy audiobooks. I think the physical movement while I listen helps me focus. And I chose to listen to my books first. 😉 After all, I know those stories by heart.
Nothing helps a writer more than listening to her own stories. You catch things you would never catch in the manuscript.
I’ve been listening to a lot of audio books while I do my household chores like washing dishes, unloading the dishwasher, dusting the furniture, vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, etc. Usually, I check out audio books from OneClickdigital, a service run through my public library. Oneclickdigital has a lot of Christian fiction. Of course I use the actual CD’s from the library and the digital library also.
Wendy, are these readers the same ones on Audible Audio editions? Or is it an automated voice like on a GPS? I am confused.
These are the Audible narrators*. People do get confused because Amazon also offers free text to word audio which is that GPS voice.
*And of course Audible is often only the distributor and the audio books are done by Blackstone, Recorded Books, Oasis, etc.
I guess I’m a dinosaur, but I prefer reading old fashioned hard copy books. I’m not an auditory learner so audio books don’t hold my interest. And I spend so much time on the computer I’ve hardly read any of the books on my Kindle. The combination of e-audio-books does not appeal to me.
It’s interesting that many people have landed where you’ve landed, Janet. Sales of traditional books are up and eBooks have leveled out.
It’s nice to know I’m not the only one.
One from the dark ages…the best reading of Act 1 Scene 1 of Macbeth was done by The Pointer Sisters. They played it absolutely straight until…
(Witch 1) “Where the place?”
(Witch 2) “Upon the heath…”
(Witch 3) “…there to meet with…”
(All) “Mac…BEEETH!”
Yeah. . . no.
Wow, these sound like really neat technologies! I hadn’t heard about the highlighting as you read, and I didn’t realize that the narrators were so good. I’m very picky about my narrators of audio books, so I’m glad to hear they have talented ones. Thanks for the info, Wendy!
You are welcome, Jerusha.
I love Whispersync!! Thanks to your brilliant recommendation of Mark Batterson’s In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day, I was able to read/listen to some of the book and then listen to the remainder of it while in transit from Oklahoma to our new home in Texas. I am hooked!