With the development of technology in recent years, audiobooks have become more popular and widely available. Therefore, children are increasingly using audiobooks and technology to read than printed books. This comes with a number of advantages and disadvantages, highlighted by the large volume of ongoing research on the topic of technology use in education. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay It has long been known that it is very beneficial for children to have someone read aloud to them. Parents are often encouraged to read to their children, as this brings the benefits of both bonding and increasing their children's reading skills. It stands to reason, then, that audiobooks are of great use in developing reading skills in children. Renee Michelet Casbergue and Karen Harris point out how it offers more choice for teachers: "That is, audiobooks can be used interchangeably with paper volumes, replacing or supplementing a matter of individual preference or convenience." This also applies to more interactive forms of reading, such as apps with visual accompaniment. Children are often interested in cartoons and animated media, so audiobooks and similar media provide a means through which children who do not usually show an interest in reading can be encouraged to do so. The National Literacy Report found that the use of audiobooks is beneficial, and that teachers agree with this. They found that using audiobooks is particularly helpful in children who don't like to read and who have lower literacy standards. They state that "children and young people aged 9 to 18 with the lowest levels of reading confidence are more likely to read a variety of materials on screen than those with medium or high reading confidence." For example, 23.3% of those with low reading confidence read fiction on screen compared to 15% of their peers who have high reading confidence.' This shows that audiobooks can be very effective in helping low-confidence children's reading using materials that are more familiar to them. However, the fact that they are used less by confident readers suggests that they are not necessarily a better form of reading, but rather that they are useful in making reading inaccessible to children who are not comfortable reading printed books. The use of audiobooks is the voice reading them. Different accents are used for different characters, which could potentially cause children to associate certain accents with certain types of people, and as such characterize particular accents as bad or good. Julia R. Dobrow and Calvin L. Gidney address how this issue presents itself in cartoons in "The Good, the Bad, and the Stranger: The Use of Dialect in Children's Animated Television." They concluded that "The findings indicate that children's animated programming continues to underrepresent people of color and women." Linguistically, gender and ethnicity were marked by the use of dialect stereotypes. In particular, the villains consistently used non-American accents.' This comes with obvious problems, such as the fact that villains with non-American accents would likely cause children to attach negative connotations to non-American people. Although this was a cartoon rather than an audiobook, the same patterns are likely to emerge, as different and distinct voices and accents are used so that children can distinguish who is speaking. Struggle.