Resources >> Educators Differ on why Boys lag in reading

Educators differ on why boys lag in reading

From an Article by Valerie Strauss / The Washington Post

WASHINGTON--Jerilynn Hoffman couldn't get her young son to read much until she found a book that wasn't her cup of tea but definitely was his: ``The Day My Butt Went Psycho.''
Sharon Grover had a different problem: Her son loved books early in elementary school but mysteriously lost interest at about third grade, declaring: ``My mother is a librarian, but I hate to read.'' He did, however, start reading again for pleasure--in his 20s.
Enticing boys to read--and to keep reading--is the flip side of the sometimes fierce debate about girls and their math and science abilities, and both issues are receiving new attention as educators focus on how boys and girls learn differently.
The controversy about gender and learning was stoked anew when Harvard University President Larry Summers recently questioned girls' intrinsic abilities in math and science. Then first lady Laura Bush spoke about her new effort to help boys, who she said are falling dangerously behind girls in such areas as literacy.
Some educators have said that the concern over boys is exaggerated and that boys end up doing just fine, holding top jobs and being paid higher average salaries than women. Others, however, have said boys face an unprecedented literary crisis that limits their opportunities, citing studies showing that the gap between the sexes--dating back to the 19th century--has increased markedly.
``Part of it is biological and part of it is sociological, but boys are definitely drifting down,'' said Jon Scieszka, author of the ``The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales,'' and founder of the Web site www.guysread.com, which is aimed at helping interest boys in reading. ``We've been testing kids in America for the last 25 years and finding out that boys are doing worse than girls,'' he said. ``But we don't do enough to change that.''
Exactly what should be done, however, is unclear, because there is no consensus on how much genetics, environment and culture are responsible for the gap. And it is not strictly a U.S. phenomenon: Stephen Gorard, education professor at the University of York in England, reviewed scores for 22 countries and discovered gaps in every one, despite differences in school setups and curricula.
What is known is that boys generally take longer to learn to read than girls; they read less and are less enthusiastic about it; and they have more trouble understanding narrative texts yet are better at absorbing informational texts. Those findings are from a literacy study done in 2002, ``Reading Don't Fix No Chevys,'' by Michael W. Smith, a Temple University professor, and Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Boise State University English education professor.
Scientists have said that boys are born with smaller language centers in their brains--and larger spatial centers--than girls and that boys develop language abilities at a slower rate, though eventually they catch up.
Girls generally learn to read and understand language sooner than boys, which helps to explain why early remedial reading classes are most often heavily populated with boys, teachers say.
Most teachers are not schooled in dealing with children's biological differences, experts say, and many teachers beyond the third-grade level do not understand that they can do a lot to build up students' reading skills and confidence.
``If we don't teach reading and writing to boys in a boy-friendly way, they will continue to fall behind,'' said Michael Gurian, author and co-founder of the Spokane, Wash.-based Gurian Institute, which trains educators in gender differences in learning.
The notion of confidence in reading is central to the issue, said Smith, the Temple professor. He said that people like to do what they are good at and that when boys stumble early in learning to read, it is often a skill they never warm to.
Another factor, said Hoffman, a reading specialist at Pattie Elementary School in Prince William County, Va., is that it is more difficult for many boys to sit still for classes, much less to ``cuddle up with a book.''
``They are just more active,'' she said.
Many schools have made an effort to incorporate into their curricula more books thought to appeal to boys, but Smith said he doubts that book choice will make the difference without changing the context in which boys are taught.
Meanwhile, a growing number of experts have said that what constitutes ``good reading'' might need redefining--much of what boys often like to read is not highly respected by the English teachers trying to get their students to love ``King Lear.'' Perhaps, Hoffman and other educators said, the very definition of literacy needs to be rewritten.
``A lot of teachers think of reading as reading stories,'' said Lee Galda, professor of children's literature at the University of Minnesota. ``And in fact, a lot of boys, and not just boys, like nonfiction. But we keep concentrating on novels or short stories and sometimes don't think of reading nonfiction as reading. But in fact it is, and it is extremely important.''
Q&A: How to encourage reading
Sharon Grover, who is the youth services selections specialist at Arlington (Va.) Public Library, is responsible for choosing books for children from infancy through high school. She spoke about young people and reading.
Q. When you choose books, do you think of the audience you are trying to reach in terms of gender?
A: I make decisions based on who the audience will be, but I truly don't think, ``Oh, I've already bought 10 books for girls, so I need to buy 10 books for boys.''
Q. You've said your own son stopped reading in the middle of elementary school. What did you do? What can other parents do?
A. What we did when he stopped reading was to back off. ... I just shut up. But I had friends that he really liked who asked him to read things and would suggest things they loved. He would, of course, take their word over anything his mother would say. Sometimes it can be a teacher or another person the child really likes. And maybe a man.
Q. So parents pushing their kids isn't the way to go?
A. No, no, it doesn't usually work. ...
Another thing we did was to start to listen to audio books. I started listening to be a reviewer. Then, when we were in the car, my son would listen, too, but he would pretend that he wasn't at all interested. When we got out, he would say, ``Don't you dare listen without me.''
Q. What does that do for kids who don't want to read?
A: Parents think it is the easy way out. We hear all the time, ``Isn't it cheating?'' But the research shows it is not cheating at all. It is not only good for struggling readers and English-language learners, it is also good for accomplished readers.
Q. Why?
A: There is a lot of research on the efficacy of listening in terms of learning reading skills. It builds vocabulary, it models fluency and proper pronunciation. It improves comprehension, especially for auditory learners. ... In fact, in Arlington, the English and language arts departments (at the public schools) have started to allow some kids to listen to audio books to fulfill their reading assignments. ...
Audio books for kids tend not to circulate as much because parents are under the misapprehension that children don't commute. But in this day and age, they do. You are taking them to a lot of activities. ...
When we make summer reading lists, we actively look for books where there is a good audio edition so kids can do either.
Q. You must like to see children read great books. How do you define literature?
A: It's the writing. Is it formulaic? Really predictable? Does it have something in there that makes you think of something other than the obvious. But there is nothing wrong with the stuff that is not literature, either. It can be really helpful for children to read books with a formula. That helps them gain confidence in reading.
Q. What do you think about nonliterary reading?
A: Our central library supervisor, Chang Liu, has two boys, 6 and 9. The 9-year-old is a voracious reader and the 6-year-old is not. (The 6-year-old) loves GameBoy, so she bought him a subscription to a Nintendo magazine, and he reads it from cover to cover. Until you really are a strong reader, the process is the most important thing. If you can't get the process down, you can't read fluently. That takes you back to books with formulas. They help kids gain confidence they need to become fluent. You want to encourage all kinds of reading.


 

Books that boys like (and girls do, too)
Young Readers
``Cars and Trucks and Things That Go,'' by Richard Scarry
``The Carrot Seed,'' by Ruth Krauss
Frog and Toad books, by Arnold Lobel
``Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus,'' by Mo Willems
``Go, Dog, Go!'' by P.D. Eastman
``George and Martha'' books, by James Marshall
``The Stupids,'' by Harry G. Allard, illustrated by James Marshall
``Caps for Sale,'' by Esphyr Slobodkina
``I Spy'' books, by Jean Marzollo, photographs by Walter Wick
Dr. Seuss books
``The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!'' by Jon Scieszka
Middle Readers
``A Series of Unfortunate Events,'' by Lemony Snicket
Artemis Fowl series, by Eoin Colfer
``A Week in the Woods,'' by Andrew Clements
``The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales,'' by Jon Scieszka
``Al Capone Does My Shirts,'' by Gennifer Choldenko
The ``Baseball Card Adventure'' series, by Dan Gutman
``Bud, Not Buddy,'' by Christopher Paul Curtis
``Sideways Stories From Wayside School'' and ``Holes,'' by Louis Sachar
The Joey Pigza books, by Jack Gantos
``The Day My Butt Went Psycho,'' by Andy Griffiths
Captain Underpants books, by Dav Pilkey
Young Adults
The Dark Materials trilogy, by Philip Pullman
Redwall series, by Brian Jacques
``Eragon,'' by Christopher Paolini
``Hole in My Life,'' by Jack Gantos
``The Book of Three,'' by Lloyd Alexander
``Jake, Reinvented,'' by Gordon Korman
``Ironman,'' by Chris Crutcher
``Extreme Elvin,'' ``Slot Machine,'' by Chris Lynch
``Starship Troopers,'' by Robert Heinlein
``The Outsiders,'' by S.E. Hinton
``White Fang,'' ``Sea Wolf,'' by Jack London

Compiled from the www.guysread.com Web site and interviews with Arlington, Va., librarian Sharon Grover, Columbia University Teachers College reading specialist Lucy Calkins, University of Minnesota Professor Lee Galda and Arizona State University Professor James Blasingame.