The Boys are Back in Town - Boys and Reading

After our two recent posts about Girls' Reading here and here, it's time to have a look at the boys.

There has been a lot of focus lately on boys and reading, for good reason. As Brian Kenney, Editor-in-Chief of School Library Journal put it in the September 2007 issue,
"there are many studies and decades of reading scores that document that the biggest gender gap for learning achievement is in literacy. And the problem [has] been demonstrated across the globe, with differences between the genders typically increasing with age."

The authors of the recent UK School Library Association Boys into Books list (see our blog entry here for details) note that:
"research from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has found that girls are much more likely than boys to read for enjoyment: 78% of girls, against only 65 % of boys. The same research also suggested that reading enjoyment is more important for children's educational success than their family's socioeconomic status" (Times Online, May 15 2007).

So clearly, its important to help more boys become recreational readers who read for enjoyment. Here a few ideas for some ways into doing this.

The Boys into Books list includes several pages of ideas about getting boys reading, as well as "around 170 titles guaranteed to get boys reading". This list be downloaded free.

The September 2007 School Library Journal editorial talks about the importance of seeing male role models reading. Wayne Mills, Auckland College of Education Lecturer, also endorses this. At school, have male teachers, the male principal, and male role models or community members regularly reading to students throughout the school, and being seen enjoying books and reading themselves.

Kenny also discusses recent research on the "secret reading life of boys", showing that boys ARE reading - "nonfiction, game manuals, comic books, and catalogs". Have a look at this hobbies survey on the Get Johnny Reading blog, which you could use as a basis for buying non-fiction books on topics that boys (and also girls) really want to find out about.

Australian Fran Knight, in an October 2007 Literature Base article called "Boys and books! They can't get enough of them" says that boys are asking for more adventure, mystery, science fiction, thriller and crime stories, historical fiction and graphic novels. She also mentions the Horrible Histories series, and sports series such as Boyz Rule and Extreme Adventures.

Many boys are very interested in ICT, and this can be used to build an interest in reading. See this post to find out about English Online's "Book Backchat" a great New Zealand online reading discussion group.

Readers, keep tuned to Create Readers over the next week for a list of books that boys are buying from bookshops, with their own pocket money!