Boys and Literacy

 

Janet Brown
Cornerstone Literacy Fellow
Pat Faulkner
Cornerstone Leadership Fellow

 

The ability to read and to read well is the most important skill a child can acquire. However, there are several reasons why some children do not read, nor do they like to read; particularly, boys. Why is this? Some reasons and solutions to this problem will be explored in this article.

What Are the Causes?

For the last 30 years, the United States Department of Education has reported that boys score worse in language arts than girls in every age group, every year. Why might boys be having trouble?

One of the causes is that boys and girls learn differently. Brain-based research provides several reasons why and how boys and girls differ in their learning and learning styles. Gurian and Ballew's The Boys and Girls Learn Differently Action Guide for Teachers

  • Girls tend to be better at verbal skills; boys are better at spatial relationships and are more physically aggressive.
  • Boys tend to be deductive in their conceptualizations, starting their "reasoning process from a general principal and applying it or ancillary principals, to individual cases."
  • Girls tend to favor inductive thinking, beginning with "specific concrete examples" adding and building more to their base of conceptualization.
  • Boys tend to be able to see something without touching it, they are better with abstract concepts.
  • Boys often require more and various stimuli to remain attentive and avoid boredom. Their activities are often action packed and aggressive, practicing karate kicks, wrestling and roughhousing. Movement seems to stimulate male brains and helps manage impulsive behavior.
  • Girls tend to be better at self managing boredom.

Smith and Wilhelm's book, "Reading Don't Fix No Chevys"; Literacy in the Lives of Young Men, provides the reader with a "systematic look at a wide variety of boys from a wide variety of contexts". Smith and Wilhelm give some of the following reasons for the difficulties boys experience in reading:

  • Biologically, boys are slower to develop than girls and often struggle with reading and writing skills early on.
  • The action-orientated, competitive learning styles of many boys works against them learning to read and write.
  • Boys tend to learn to read at an older age than girls, take longer to learn and comprehend narrative texts less easily.
  • They value reading less and look at reading only as a way to get information rather than as an activity of recreation.
  • Many books boys are asked to read don't appeal to them. They aren't motivated to want to read. Boys are usually most interested in books related to hobbies, sports, and activities that call for engagement.
  • Boys tend to gravitate towards books of escapism and humor, more than fiction and poetry. They also like to collect series of books. (Simpson, 1996; Smith and Wilhelm, 2002)

Smith and Wilhelm remind the reader that not all boys have problems reading and writing; some of the students they taught were "excellent students, highly engaged readers, and skilled writers". Their concern is that "a focus on boys' problems" limits our ability to see the boys' strengths that we can build upon."

Thomas Newkirk, author of Misreading Masculinity, Boys, Literacy and Popular Culture, commented in Education Week on "The Quiet Crisis in Boys' Literacy", where Newkirk reviewed the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress for writing released in 2003. The results showed a gap in the scores of females to males, showing a remarkably lower average of 24 points for boys by 12th grade. Newkirk stated:" To put this gap in perspective, it equals the gap between African-American and white students at the 12th grade. While the racial gap is caused by a perfect storm of social inequalities---poor housing, resegregation, poverty, and a legacy of discrimination---there can be no such explanation for the gender gap."

Newkirk further stated: "The bias toward literary realism and social significance causes teachers to dismiss the powerful attractions of popular culture---cartoons, TV shows, rap, video games, action movies and humor. In many cases, female teachers find the popular culture enjoyed by boys to be repugnant or at least foreign. Consequently, it is treated not as a resource for literacy work, but as an enemy for which school literacy must contend against. There is even a reluctance to treat nonfiction as a serious literary form; though surveys show boys tend to prefer nonfiction."

To add to this dilemma,, boys are conditioned to view reading and writing as not masculine. They view novel reading as a feminine activity, "as they rarely see men in their lives reading fiction."

What Are Some Possible Solutions?

  • Involve boys in the selection of their reading materials. Boys like to see characters like themselves; they want to read things that are interesting to them.
  • Provide boys with non-fiction material. Research suggests that given the choice, boys will read magazines, newspapers, how-to reading, and books about sports, cars, hobbies and biographies of people whose lives would excite boys.
  • Provide younger students with opportunities to move around the room, give them subject matter that enables them to use a more tactile, hands-on learning style.
    Boys like nature topics, bugs, dinosaurs, and creepy-crawly things.
    Find ways of integrating their energy into the reading process.

Teachers who allow boys to see the rich variety of forms that the written word can take may help to create more enthusiastic readers. A classroom library equipped with attractive age- and ability-appropriate books encourage boys to pick up one when a free moment is available. Regular visits to the school or community library give boys a much wider range of reading materials and can foster a desire to improve their skills so they can tackle the more sophisticated materials.

According to Patrick Jones and Dawn Cartwright Fiorelli in "Overcoming the Obstacle Course: Teenage Boys and Reading," an article in the February 2003 issue of Teacher Librarian magazine, there are immediate steps that librarians can take to improve attitudes toward reading among boys which include:

  • Planning programs aimed just at boys;
  • Doing book talks in the classroom that include a lot of nonfiction;
  • Buying American Library Association Read posters that feature males;
  • Encouraging coaches of boys' sports teams to participate in a Guys Read program such as having athletes read to younger children;
  • Increasing the number of periodicals, magazines, comic books, and newspapers in the library;
  • Actively recruiting boys to work in the library;
  • Surveying boys about their reading;
  • Buying books that boys recommend; and
  • Putting books where the boys are, next to the computers, copy machines, and study table.

In England, the reading campaign of the National Literacy Trust includes the recruitment of Reading Champions, any man or boy who inspires others with his enthusiasm for reading. The program "believes it is vital to provide boys with positive examples of reading men who can identify with and relate to and support families and practitioners in creating an environment where every boy has access to a positive male read role model."

Families play a critical role in promoting male literacy, and the impact is especially powerful, if the father is involved in helping boys see reading as something males do. According to Wendy Schwartz in the ERIC Digest entry "Helping Under-achieving Boys Read Well and Often," some possibilities include:

  • Parents modeling reading, sharing what they have learned, recommending good books;
  • Parents and sons reading together, looking up information together to show the value of reading and the development of problem-solving skills; and
  • Taking books along on long trips or to places where waiting is anticipated to help boys see reading as recreation.

Administrators should be encouraged to take the lead in finding ways to improve literacy achievement for boys. High expectations, school environment, resources, literacy instruction and accountability should all be considered in the process.

There is no part of society that wants to see boys begin a lifetime of reading deficits. The Harry Potter phenomenon has proven that boys will embrace books that tap into their interests and imagination. Now it is up to the adults in their lives to feed that potential.