Are audiobooks cheating for a dyslexic child?

It is the question behind a lot of guilt in October, which is Dyslexia Awareness Month: if my child listens to the book, are they really reading? Short answer: listening is not cheating, and it is not a replacement for learning to read either. Here is what the research says, and where it runs out.

What counts as "reading"?

Two things happen when a child reads: working out the words (decoding), and understanding what they mean. Dyslexia mostly makes the first harder. Listening to a book skips the first job and keeps the second, so the child gets the story, the vocabulary and the ideas. A child who only ever gets the decoding struggle misses out on all of that, and falls behind classmates on vocabulary and background knowledge that come from reading widely.

What the research found

• Adolescents with dyslexia and audiobooks. In a small study of two groups of 20 adolescents with dyslexia, one group used audiobooks and one used regular books. After five months the audiobook group showed a significant improvement in reading accuracy, and also reported less unease, better school performance and more motivation (Milani, Lorusso & Molteni, Dyslexia, 2010). It was a small sample.
• Read-along tools. A meta-analysis of text-to-speech and similar read-aloud tools for students with reading difficulties found they helped reading comprehension, with an average effect size of 0.35 (Wood, Moxley, Tighe & Wagner, Journal of Learning Disabilities, 2018). That is a modest, real effect, and the authors say more studies are needed. This is about read-along tools, not audiobooks alone.
• A large trial with third and fourth graders. In an eight-week randomised trial of 314 children, who listened to audiobooks with the text in front of them, both audiobook groups improved in vocabulary from the books they heard, and the control group did not. But poor readers benefited only when the audiobooks were paired with one-on-one scaffolding (Olson et al., Developmental Science, 2026). The outcome was vocabulary, not comprehension.

What we did not find is a study that directly compares a dyslexic child's understanding of a book heard against the same book read. These findings are close to the question, not on top of it, and we would rather say so.

Notice what the second and third studies have in common: the listening came with the text in view. That is a good habit to copy at home, because it keeps the printed word in the picture while the ear does the heavy lifting.

The British Dyslexia Association's advice is in the same direction: listening to audiobooks can help children keep an interest in stories even when they are reluctant to read.

How to use audiobooks without losing reading

• Keep teaching reading separately. Audiobooks sit beside reading instruction, not instead of it. The trial above suggests the most vulnerable readers gained most when an adult talked about the book with them.
• Follow along sometimes. Play the audio while the child follows the printed text with a finger. Our post on free read-aloud tools covers the highlighting options.
• Talk about it. Two questions in the car: what happened, and what would you have done? That conversation is where the vocabulary sticks.
• Let them choose. A book they want to hear gets heard.

Where to find free audiobooks

• Libby (the library app): free to install and to borrow with a valid library card, if your library offers it.
• Bookshare (US): dyslexia is a listed qualifying condition, and eligibility needs certification by a qualified professional. Check their page for current cost and sign-up. In the UK, the BDA describes RNIB Bookshare as a service accessed through schools; ask the school whether it is registered.
• Learning Ally (US-focused): a paid family membership, listed at $135 a year when we looked, with a large audiobook library.

The short version

Listening is not cheating. It gives a child access to books and ideas at the level they can think at, while reading skills are taught on the side. The risk is not the audiobook; it is a child who gets audiobooks instead of reading help.

References

• Milani, A., Lorusso, M. L., & Molteni, M. (2010). The effects of audiobooks on the psychosocial adjustment of pre-adolescents and adolescents with dyslexia. Dyslexia. PMID 19725019.
• Wood, S. G., Moxley, J. H., Tighe, E. L., & Wagner, R. K. (2018). Does use of text-to-speech and related read-aloud tools improve reading comprehension for students with reading disabilities? A meta-analysis. Journal of Learning Disabilities. PMID 28112580.
• Olson, H. A., Ozernov-Palchik, O., Arechiga, X. M., & Gabrieli, J. D. E. (2026). Remote text-supplemented audiobook intervention supports children's explicit and incidental vocabulary learning. Developmental Science. PMID 41844538.
• British Dyslexia Association, reading advice for parents: bdadyslexia.org.uk. Libby: help.libbyapp.com. Bookshare eligibility: bookshare.org. Learning Ally: learningally.org/Join (read 2 October 2026).