Readers > Guys Read > Why Guys?
Why Guys?
A lot of boys are having trouble reading.
• The U.S. Department of Education reading tests for the last 30 years show boys scoring worse than girls in every age group, every year.
• Eighth grade boys are 50 percent more likely to be held back than girls.
• Two-thirds of Special Education Students in high school are boys.
• Overall college enrollment is higher for girls than boys.
Why might boys be having trouble?
• Biologically, boys are slower to develop than girls and often struggle with reading and writing skills early on.
• The action-oriented, competitive learning style of many boys works against them learning to read and write
• Many books boys are asked to read don't appeal to them. They aren't motivated to want to read.
• As a society, we teach boys to suppress feelings. Boys often don't feel comfortable exploring the emotions and feelings found in fiction.
• Boys don't have enough positive male role models for literacy. Because the majority of adults involved in kids' reading are women, boys might not see reading as a masculine activity.
Adapted from GUYS READ (www.guysread.org) - a nonprofit literacy initiative founded by Jon Scieszka, and is a sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA).