Reading Gap Between Boys, Girls Called 'A Serious Crisis'

By MARILYN BROWN The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jul 22, 2007

Comment On This Story

TAMPA - The throngs of boys lined up for Saturday's release of the latest "Harry Potter" book may have been encouraging, but their enthusiasm for the final book in the series masks what some educators say is a crisis.

Boys lag far behind girls in reading proficiency.

Test scores - in Hillsborough County as well as the state and nation - confirm the disparity.

Girls are more proficient in reading than boys at all grade levels in Hillsborough. The gap - as much as 10 percentage points - is widest in fourth and fifth grades when reading shifts from basic skills to more complex subject matter.

Boys also outnumber girls in remedial reading classes and summer reading camps in Hillsborough.

"If you look at our retentions in first grade, 90 percent are boys," said Didi Lefler, assistant principal at Tampa's Town & County Elementary, where boys outnumber girls 157 to 104 in summer reading camp.

Lefler sees the difference both in school and at home.

"My 7-year-old son has a wealth of knowledge, a great vocabulary, but he took longer to learn his letters. In pre-k, they wanted to hold him back. My daughter, who's 4, just started pre-k and gets the whole concept of letters and words."

"As an educator, it drives me crazy," Lefler said.

The boys who squirm and pop up and down in the Town & Country reading camp illustrate the differences. They know what they like.

"I like playing with my friends," said 6-year-old Noah Ayala, decked out in a T-shirt with his favorite Power Rangers on the front. Sitting in a group, Noah lets his eyes wander. Later, when he can match small and capital letters by pinching wooden clothespins on a paper plate, he focuses and smiles, eyes shining.

Physiological Differences

Historically, boys excelled in math and science, and girls lagged. But much effort has been heaped on closing that gap nationally. Researchers and educators are now turning their attention to boys' struggle to read.

If they don't, the effect will be dramatic, some predict.

"It's a man's world - it's not a boy's world," said William Pollack, a Harvard Medical School professor, author and director of the Centers for Men & Young Men. "We didn't stop to notice over time that while girls did better with math and science, boys began to fall behind in reading."

When that trend started is unclear because there is a lack of comparable data, Pollack and others said. What is clear: The situation is not improving.

Pollack offers these statistics:

•Boys learn to read an average of 12 to 15 months later than girls.

•Nationally the gap between girls' and boys' reading proficiency is 5 percentage points to 10 percentage points. In writing, it's 10 percentage points to 15 percentage points.

•About three-quarters of special-education students are boys.

•Poor, black and Hispanic boys struggle the most with reading.

Poverty has long been a factor in poor academic performance, but a high percentage of boys from educated families are deficient in reading. Twenty-three percent of young white men with parents who have at least a bachelor's degree are not proficient in reading when they graduate from high school; 7 percent of young women are not, according to statistics.

Educators have long recognized that boys and girls learn differently. And new brain research has convinced some that more consideration should be given to the findings.

"Girls' left brain tends to develop more quickly than boys' left brain," said Diane Connell, a professor of New Hampshire's Rivier College. "That enables girls in kindergarten and first grade to actually do the writing, fine motor skills, sit in their seats longer. They're even able to hear better. They really do come to school more equipped to read and write."

Boys' right brains - responsible for spatial and visual motor skills - develop faster than girls', so they do better in math, she said.

"It's a serious crisis right now," Connell said. "The boys are having the crisis now that girls had 25, 30 years ago."

Boys prefer hands-on activities and are more selective about what they read than girls. Fluency is a problem for many boys because they don't read enough, researchers said.

They even take tests differently.

During reading comprehension tests, boys answer quickly and off-the-cuff, said Grace Albritton, Hillsborough schools' supervisor of evaluation.

"They think they're asking for their knowledge," she said. "They do not pay attention to the text - they will tell you what they think."

Recent studies of reading and test-taking behavior among black and Hispanic fourth-grade boys in Hillsborough produced similar findings.

"Many boys read slower and aren't inclined to go back and check answers even if given time," said Albritton, who has been an educator for 40 years.

When taking practice Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests in reading, boys often chose answers that could be true but were not in the passage they read, she said.

Girls, on the other hand, pay closer attention to the text, return to it for answers and often check their work, she said.

The emphasis on testing and accountability may only exacerbate the problem. "The teachers get more anxious; then the students get more anxious. The boys don't respond to this pressure well at all," Connell said.

Looking For Solutions

Some school districts are experimenting with same-sex classrooms, which show mixed results. But educators said being aware of the problem and addressing it on multiple fronts are key.

More books and magazines that appeal to boys are available now, Albritton and others said, but teachers and parents have to take time to help them find those books.

"Girls are interested in a wide range of things," Albritton said. "Boys prefer something with a storyline with adventure or fantasy. We are working hard getting books that appeal to boys. Surprisingly, a lot of those are also interesting to girls."

Interest in reading takes a dive in middle school, where textbooks were "very clinical," said Lynn Dougherty-Underwood, Hillsborough's middle and high school reading supervisor. That's changing, she said.

"Boys tend to like information text, the pragmatic stuff - sports, hobbies, fishing. We can use that as a springboard to get them back into text," she said. Boys may not like novels "because they can't always run the movies in their heads."

Graphic novels - much like comic books with chunks of text - are popular among boys, she said, and they have expanded from earlier dark themes. Schools are including more of them to boost interest.

Educators said it is critical for children to see adults read, but fewer than half of American adults read literature, according to a 2004 survey from the National Endowment for the Arts. The steepest decline - 28 percent - was among 18- to 24-year-olds, with reading by men falling at a higher rate than among women.

Literary reading - which includes novels, short stories and poetry - is crucial, said Sunil Iyengar, research and analysis director for the group. "There are metaphors, symbols, other parts of reading. It's a vastly different type of reading for the most part."

A study of children's reading rates is being compiled by the agency and is expected to address the decline in literary reading and the increase in electronic forms.

"Boys don't see a point to reading," said Evan Levsky, director of Just Read! Florida at the Department of Education. "About seventh grade through high school, I don't think I ever read a book. I may have skimmed things from school. Sports and other things pulled my interest away. I didn't have any kind of male role model. My male role models were athletes."

Reading strategies include teaching students the habits of literate adults, which students may not be getting at home, Levsky said. But that can be useless if a teacher makes a poor choice of text, he said. That's a big reason he pushes for more student choice in reading material.

Giving students more choice and reading time were the focus of a pilot program started in six Hillsborough elementary schools in 2006-07, said Glenda Brown, the district's elementary reading and language arts supervisor.

One of those schools, McFarlane Park, an International Studies and International Baccalaureate magnet school in Tampa, sent several teachers to the University of Connecticut this month to study a national model. It includes independent choice, individual teacher conferences with the students, and more time reading and talking about the books.

Cindy Doyle, a 28-year veteran teacher who used the method with her fifth-graders last year, said that for boys, "It gives them a feeling of control - that's the key for them."

Hema Adhia will use the new method in a fifth-grade class this year. She said choice is important and plans to promote books that will grab students' interest.

"How would every child in your class like the same book?" she asked.

But just reading the book is not enough.

"Children need an audience after they've read," Adhia said, whether it is parents, a teacher or classmates.

"It's hard to compete with the Internet," Adhia said of her experience with her own sons. "It's fast - it's the same reason we feel kids don't have an attention span. Books give them a chance to close the book and reflect."

Adhia said her 13-year-old son's interest is waning, and he agrees that his other activities cut heavily into his reading time.

"The Internet's now - it's always changing," Akash Adhia said, but he doesn't trust it as much as books. "A book's something that's credible.'

Akash confirms the ideas his mother and other educators are now embracing. He still likes books, especially "when I don't know what's happening next."

Educators say that's what has drawn boys - and girls - to the "Harry Potter" books as they rip through the pages this week to see what the final chapter of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" has in store.

Among those with reservations for two of the books: Akash and his 10-year-old brother. Their mother ordered two so "both can start reading at the same time."

Her sons are competitive, she said. They want to see who can finish the book first.

Reporter Marilyn Brown can be reached at mbrown@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-8069.

Tips For Encouraging Boys To Read

•Identify the child's interests by observing or asking. •Find books, magazines and manuals tied to those interests. •Let the child choose from suitable options. •Make sure boys see men reading. •Read to the child. •Use books on tape to generate interest. •Let the child read along in a book as he listens on tape. •If he stumbles over words or sentences, encourage rereading. •Don't make a big deal about mistakes; just help. •Reread stories to the child. •Encourage the child to reread stories. •Let the child tape himself reading and listen as he rereads. •Explain the meaning of words. •Use hands-on activities and materials tied to letters and words. •Have the child read frequently for short periods. •Alternate reading passages or chapters; step in when they tire. •Don't push boys to read before they're ready. •Start research on the Internet that leads to books. •Discuss meaning, characters and insight from books. •Let them eat and lounge as they read in comfortable positions. •Make reading fun. Online Help • www.guysread.com• www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists• www.ala.org/alscwww.parents-choice.org/readlist.cfm