!   You are concerned about statistical evidence that indicates that boys are falling behind girls in reading and writing.

!   You are concerned by reports in the media about boys’ achievement in reading and writing.

!   You are a parent of a boy, or boys, and are concerned about what you’ve observed about their reluctance to read and/or write.

!   You notice differences between the ways in which boys and girls engage In literacy based activities in your classroom.

!   You had nothing better to do.

!   You heard that the presenter was cute.

!   You’re in the wrong place. You thought Chris Wejr was speaking again, but you’re too embarrassed to draw attention to yourself and leave.

Consider what kind of teacher is the ideal teacher for boys.

Draw a sketch and write a brief description of the teacher who would be best suited to teach young boys and influence their attitudes about reading and writing.

•  Is an accomplished reader

•  Feels competent as a reader

•  Enjoys fiction / narratives •  Identifies with characters,

relationships, and feelings in the text

•  Writes with confidence

•  Identifies as a non-reader •  Doesn’t feel competent

as a reader •  Prefers non-fiction to

fiction (i.e info-text, or biographies)

•  Identifies with action and events in stories

•  Experiences anxiety when prompted to write

A variety of research shows that boys learn to read later than girls and never catch up. They trail girls on almost every literacy measure in every country and culture from which data are available. They are particularly behind when it comes to reading novels and extended forms of narrative fiction – the kind of reading that counts most in language arts classes. (Smith, and Wilhelm, 2002)

Attitude: • Boys generally provide lower estimates of their reading abilities than girls do.

• Boys value reading as an activity less than girls do.

• Boys have much less interest in leisure reading and are far more likely to read for utilitarian purposes than girls are.

• Significantly more boys than girls declare themselves “non-readers.”

• Boys spend less time reading and express less enthusiasm for reading than girls do.

• Boys increasingly consider themselves non-readers as they get older; very few designate themselves as such early in their schooling, but nearly 50% make that designation by high school.

Choice: Boys and girls express interest in reading different things, and they do read different things.

Boys are more inclined to read informational texts.

Boys are more inclined to read magazine articles and newspaper articles.

Boys are more inclined to read graphic novels and comic books.

Boys tend to resist reading stories about girls, whereas girls do not tend to resist reading stories about boys.

Boys are more enthusiastic about reading electronic texts than girls are.

Boys like to read about hobbies, sports and things they might do or be interested in doing.

Boys like to collect things and tend to like to collect series of books.

Poetry is less popular with boys than with girls.

Girls read more fiction.

Boys tend to enjoy escapism and humour; some groups of boys are passionate about science fiction and fantasy.

Achievement: Boys take longer to learn to read than girls do.

Boys read less than girls read.

Girls tend to comprehend narrative texts and most expository texts significantly better than boys do.

Boys tend to be better at information retrieval and work-related literacy tasks than girls are.

Response: The appearance of a book and its cover is important to boys.

Boys are less likely to talk about or overtly respond to their reading than girls are.

Boys prefer active responses in reading in which they physically act out responses, do, or make something.

Boys tend to receive more open and direct criticism for weaknesses in their reading and writing performances.

Boys require more teacher time in coed settings.

If you have lots of boys in an English or language arts class – or so the conventional wisdom goes – you can expect to have problems.

•  Boys tend to move around and get out of their seats more often than girls.

•  Boys tend to require more physical space when working independently than girls. (Did you ever notice that boys tend to have an arm or a leg in the space of the person sitting next to them?)

•  Boys tend to grasp spatial concepts more rapidly than girls while girls seem to embrace the use of language to convey their understanding of concepts more readily than boys.

•  Girls seem to be a great deal more talkative than boys.

•  Girls are less likely to use physical force to resolve conflicts than boys.

Quote

Right hemisphere:

Interprets emotional contents; tone of voice; facial expressions; gestures; social, musical, visual, spatial, and environmental awareness, unconscious self-image, body image, emotional and visual memory

Boys use right-side of brain to work on abstract problems; girls use both sides

Males superior at spatial relationships

Left hemisphere:

Processes language in most people; reading, writing, math, verbal thoughts and memory, temporal, sequential language, linguistic consciousness

Usually better developed in the female brain; creates superiority at language tasks

Females superior at listening, communicating, all language-based learning

Contains neurons that connect to other parts of the brain and spinal cord and facilitate smooth, precise movement; balance; and speech

Stronger connecting pathways in female brain between brain parts

Females have superior language and fine-motor skills; males less intuitive , as fewer parts of brain involved in tasking

Facilitates speech, thought, and emotion; produces neurons for skilled movement

Likely more active in females

Improved verbal communication skills in females

Multiple Intelligences (Gardner, 1983):

1.  Verbal/Linguistic intelligence

2.  Logical-mathematical intelligence

3.  Spatial intelligence

4.  Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence

5.  Musical intelligence

6.  Interpersonal intelligence

7.  Intrapersonal intelligence

8.  Naturalist intelligence

9.  Existential intelligence

8 Ways of Teaching

1.  words

2.  numbers or logic

3.  pictures

4.  a physical experience

5.  music

6.  A social experience

7.  self-reflection

8.  An experience in the natural

9.  Real world connections

Gender is a social construction rather than a biological one.

“Whether the males in our society have been betrayed as Susan

Faludi writes, lost or abandoned as William Pollack writes, or

treated as losers as Christian Hoff Sommers writes, we are faced with helping them to become

proficient readers and writers.”

Booth, 2002

…sociocultural theorists and scholars from Australia and the United Kingdom have led the way in arguing that boys’ problems with literacy in school stem from a resistance rooted in the belief that reading isn’t appropriately masculine.

September 13

I don’t want to

Because boys

Don’t write poetry.

Girls do.

Excerpt from Sharon Creech’s novel, Love that Dog.

Social constructivism emphasizes that changing

instructional environments, methods, and expectations can change the experience of kids.

•  Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernable). •  Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a

limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).

•  A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.

•  Distorted sense of time - our subjective experience of time is altered. •  Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the

course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).

•  Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is not too easy or too difficult).

•  A sense of personal control over the situation or activity. •  The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of

action.

How does it feel to be in "the flow"?

•  Completely involved, focused, concentrating - with this either due to innate curiosity or as the result of training

•  Sense of ecstasy - of being outside everyday reality •  Great inner clarity - knowing what needs to be done and how well it is

going •  Knowing the activity is doable - that the skills are adequate, and neither

anxious or bored •  Sense of serenity - no worries about self, feeling of growing beyond the

boundaries of ego - afterwards feeling of transcending ego in ways not thought possible

•  Timeliness - thoroughly focused on present, don't notice time passing •  Intrinsic motivation - whatever produces "flow" becomes its own reward

•  A sense of control and competence.

•  A challenge that requires an appropriate amount of skill.

•  Clear goals and feedback.

•  A focus on the immediate experience. -(Smith and Wilhelm, 2002)

“So how do we start motivating our boys to read?...

www.guysread.com

One obvious solution is to get

more men involved in teaching, more

fathers actively reading with their

boys, and adult men generally

showing boys that reading is a male

activity.”

Jon Scieszka, 2003/

Boys like to read: •  Books that reflect their image of themselves – what they aspire to be

and do

•  Books that make them laugh and that appeal to their sense of mischief

•  Fiction, but fiction that focuses on action more than emotions

•  Books in series, such as the Harry Potter series, which seem to provide boys with a sense of comfort and familiarity

•  Science fiction or fantasy (many boys are passionate about these genres)

•  Newspapers, magazines, comic books, baseball cards, and instruction manuals – materials that are not often available in the classroom. Interestingly, when they read these materials, many boys do not consider themselves to be reading at all, precisely because these materials are not valued at school.

(Moloney, 2002)

A good book for a boy is one he wants to read.

“Girls are riveted to relationships and boys are riveted to action and issues.”

“Boys are more interested in reading to find out how to do things or in following action oriented or problem solving stories.”

“Boys tend not to be interested in excessively descriptive narrative language, except for in one notable exception…”

…science fiction and fantasy, in which is contained some of the most significant amounts of descriptive language found in fiction. It is believed that the appeal of these genres is linked to the pleasure of “escaping” to a different world.

…”the literate lives of all the boys outside of school were surprisingly varied and rich, but this home/outside/real-world literacy was practiced in ways that looked quite different from the literacy they were asked to practice in schools. While the boys were often passionate about the literate activities they pursued outside of school, they usually saw school literacy as a tool, not as something to be passionate about.”

...”school literacy was related in the boys’ minds to the far-off future; home literacy was about immediate interests in the here and now. School literacy was a means to an often unrecognized and ambiguous end; home literacy was a concrete and immediately satisfying end in itself.”

Ways of unlocking access for boys:

•  Music as text

•  Action – visual, emotional, action filled, high impact

•  Exportable into conversation

•  Series

•  Offer Multiple Perspectives

•  Humour

•  Unique

•  Edgy or Subversive

•  Powerful Ideas

“Teachers ask very few questions for which they don’t have specific answers in mind.”