2 weeks ago, I made the strong claim that encouraging students to Read-Along while the teacher Reads-Aloud is duff practice. I was wrong(ish).
Read-Aloud: where a teacher or competent reader reads aloud to the class.
Read-Along: where students simultaneously read the same text that their teacher is reading aloud to them.
I am very grateful to Chris Such, who has patiently and gently put me right. I won’t speak for him here: he’ll do it better and clearer if he wants. There may still be errors in this post, because the evidence is not strong.
Over the years, I have changed my mind several times about Read-Alongs. When I was teaching in primary school, I was 100% in favour, but in 2017, when Cognitive Load Theory was new and exciting (to me), I changed my mind. I even asked John Sweller – at that time he agreed – asking students to follow along while the teacher reads aloud is probably an example of content redundancy – where the same information is given to a learning in two forms simultaneously. It’s obviously a bad idea.
My opinion on Read-Alongs in class.
It’s so obviously a bad idea, that I thought it was a problem solved. Sadly, that’s not quite what the evidence is saying.
The report Chris recommended I read was: Two types of redundancy in multimedia learning: a literature review (Trypke et al 2023):
Trypke et al summarised the key research on the question: is reading along to a text while the teacher reads aloud beneficial. And the answer is ‘yes’… sometimes.
| Study | Content redundancy | Comparison | Findings | The winner? |
| Bernal (2014) | Between written text and narration | Narration and written text vs. narration | The narration and written text group outperformed the narration only group. | Read-Along with Read-Aloud |
| Chang et al. (2011) | Between written text and narration | Narration and written text vs. narration | The narration and written text group outperformed the narration only group. | Read-Along with Read-Aloud |
| Diao and Sweller (2007) | Between written text and narration | Narration and written text vs. written text | The written text group outperformed the narration and written text group. | Student Read only |
| Dowell and Shmueli (2008) | Between written text and narration | Narration and written text vs. written text; Narration and written text vs. narration | The combination of narration and written text improved comprehension of complex information. | Read-Along with Read-Aloud |
| Fenesi et al. (2015) | Between written text and narration | Narration and written text vs. narration | The narration and written text group outperformed the narration only group. | Read-Along with Read-Aloud |
| Kalyuga (2014), [exp. 3] | Between written text and narration | Narration and written text vs. narration | The narration only group outperformed the narration and written text group. | Read-Aloud without Read-Along |
| Liu et al. (2015) | Between written text and narration | Narration and written text vs. written text; Narration and written text vs. narration | The narration and written text group outperformed the other groups on a comprehension test. | Read-Along with Read-Aloud |
Table adapted from Trypke et al 2023
The combined Read-Along with Read-Aloud wins – although not without dissent. In addition, when you read the papers themselves, the story isn’t made clearer. Very little of the research was carried out with school aged children, or in a classroom, or using books. Several were carried out on EAL undergraduates. One study was about using voice to support a form-filling app. All decent papers, as far as I can tell, but not a clear signal for classroom teachers to do one thing over another.
So, my new position in 2025:
- we don’t really know whether Reading-Along is harmful or helpful (it’s probably not much of either) and
- Chris Such is a good egg and better informed than I am.
My new position in school: Reading along probably doesn’t hurt, but I wouldn’t spend lots of money on class sets of books.
Happy to discuss this further.
Ben
Reading for Learning 