There is value of hearing things read out loud, & technology now makes it easier

Our earliest memories of reading likely take us back to a classroom. There a patient teacher sits nearby. We struggle to say words out loud derived from symbols that still look a little strange to our youthful eyes.

Reading aloud is the way we learn. There’s a growing body of academic research that substantiates this instinctive feeling we have. Examples include the work of the University of Waterloo. This found that reading words aloud made them easier to remember compared to reading them silently.

Reading things aloud has been incorporated into many spheres of life as a good way to check and recheck understanding. In the technology development sector, it has been labelled rubber ducking (imagining you are reading your work out loud to a rubber duck). The aim is to reinforce your own understanding logic, and check for errors or misapprehensions.

There are many putative benefits beyond this. These include: improving listening skills, strengthening fluency of speech and reasoning, promoting inclusive understanding, or building a sense of community.

At a basic level, reading aloud can be stress relieving and happiness promoting. This can is seen across cultures and languages. Many studies outline the benefits, including work as geographically spread as South Korea and Denmark.

The world of audiobooks has done much to capitalise on this. It has offered much-valued recordings of works across fiction, non-fiction, children’s books, young adult literature and popular science.

The exciting new developments around personalised audiobooks present a new opportunity to further build upon this audience and listenership.

Services that create personalised audiobooks allow people - their friends, their families, their communities, those they rely upon - to make recordings of their own voices. These are then used to create bespoke versions of meaningful stories and narratives.

Trained voice actors and beloved celebrities bring polish and elegance to the world of audiobooks. Personalised audiobooks weave a more home-spun charm. They are the personal touch or the home-cooked delight you dream about when you’re far from your homely setting.

People are now starting to tap into the power that our voices have to convey, create and reinforce positive messages, offering an attractive, inclusive and innovative approach to learning and enjoyment. It is in this arena that personalised audiobooks can positively contribute.

With a similar, short recording of your voice, voice technology platforms can now create a range of personalised audiobooks, in as many as 29 different languages, to promote the spoken word as a driver of change.

The technology to support voice recordings has now reached a level of maturity where it can be relied upon to accurately capture people’s voices for beneficial use and re-use. There’s now an excellent opportunity to work with these emerging platforms to define the best use of the technology. There is great potential in using the technology to promote societal wellbeing, build the next generation of engaged readers and learners, and deliver solutions that help to support happy and healthy communities.