In Japan, many teachers say reading aloud is the best way to learn English. Is that true? A study of Japanese university students found that reading the same text many times with a recording helped them read faster.

Another study found that shadowing helped students hear English sounds better. Also, words you say aloud are easier to remember. But there is no strong proof that reading aloud alone makes you a good speaker.

Reading aloud, or ondoku, has long been popular in Japanese English classes, but what does research say? In a 2004 study, Japanese university students practiced assisted repeated reading, reading the same passage several times while listening to a recording. This raised their silent reading speed about as much as extensive reading of many easy books did. In 2016, Hamada gave shadowing lessons to 43 Japanese university students.

Their ability to distinguish English sounds improved at every level, but listening test scores rose only for the lower-level group. Memory research also shows a production effect: words read aloud are remembered better than words read silently. However, a study claiming that read-aloud classes raised test scores had no comparison group, so there is still little evidence that reading aloud alone improves speaking.

Reading aloud is a staple of English teaching in Japan, yet it is sometimes dismissed abroad as old-fashioned. The evidence suggests that it works in specific areas rather than across the board. In a 2004 study of Japanese university students, Taguchi and colleagues found that assisted repeated reading, rereading a passage while listening to a model recording, increased silent reading rate about as much as extensive reading did, and the repetition and listening components seemed to aid comprehension.

Hamada's 2016 study of shadowing with 43 students showed improved phoneme perception across proficiency levels, but listening comprehension scores rose only among lower-level learners. Shadowing may thus train mainly bottom-up processing. Memory research adds the production effect: across eight experiments, MacLeod and colleagues found that words read aloud were remembered better than words read silently, although the advantage appears mainly when only some items are spoken, since saying something aloud makes it distinctive.

The case for speaking gains is weaker. A Japanese study reporting higher test scores after three months of read-aloud instruction used a simple before-and-after design without a control group, making it impossible to isolate the effect. Reading aloud builds foundations that still need to be connected to genuine communication.