We frequently note the importance of improving listening skills as a route to better social and civic engagement. What exactly happens when we listen, in distinction to what hearing means?

 

Listening is an active engagement that incorporates hearing and also moves beyond this passive sense. Listening entails three distinct movements:

• hearing
• understanding
• judging

When considered from this perspective, it's pretty obvious how audiobooks can play an essential role in skill building for literacy!

If you want to explore more details about listening as a dynamic of intellect, social skill building, and interpersonal awareness, take a look at this overview. Of course, we would have loved to have shared it as a sound file...ah, well. You can read it aloud to someone in your own life.