Getting_Boys_to_Read

Ideas for Getting Boys into Reading I tell the boys that reading is a skill that they learn much like learning how to ride a bike. The more they practice reading, the better they will get. A lecturer of mine told us that “if all a child will read is the back of a cereal box, praise them reading it and encourage them to read the back of a different brand or cereal.” Any reading your child is doing is reinforcing and developing the skill of reading. Many boys will only be interested in magazines or cartoons. This is fine. While they are reading these mediums, they are in fact developing their reading ability. Below is an extract from James Maloney’s website: Ideas for getting Boys into Reading. http://www.jamesmoloney.com.au/Ideas_for_Getting_Boys_into_Reading.htm Summary: A good book for a boy is one he wants to read. Boys enjoy action, funny and gross stories and books in which they can identify with. Recognise the difference between books for reading TO boys and books read BY boys. Encourage your sons to read what they enjoy reading. Try to make time to read “quality” books TO your son. What boys DO like - a brave appraisal It is a mistake to believe that boys in general and reluctant readers in particular, do not like fiction. It is often the type of fiction presented to them that is the source of their rejection. On the whole, boys enjoy books which place action ahead of emotion and where what the characters do is more important that what the characters think or feel. Hence, the apparent preference for the action novel. * Boys tend to like books, which match their image of themselves. They want to be able to identify themselves and what they would like to be and do. * Boys love to have fun so they want books that are fun, that make them laugh and appeal to their sense of madcap mayhem. This is all tied up with their image of the quintessential boy and as much as boyishness can be defined and distilled, they love to find it in the books they read. Few writers are able to capture that "boyishness" in print. * A significant part of the mayhem that boys love is poking fun at others, especially adults. Boys continually find themselves told to behave, to be tidier and less boisterous so books where the characters triumphantly break out of these restrictions are greatly prized. Two Kinds of Book Right, then. Down to business. To build a culture of reading around our boys, the first thing we need to do is recognise the difference between: • books for reading TO reluctant boys, and • books for reading BY reluctant boys This difference is real and vital in developing a connection to books. It is as simply the difference between books a boy will enjoy reading by himself and books a boy will enjoy only when an adults read them to him. This is particularly important when boys are in middle and upper Primary school. So. What is a good book for a boy' A good book for a boy is one he wants to read. The problem for many reluctant readers is that they are not being offered and encouraged to read the books and other reading material that they want to read. Boys love the ghoulish, the gross and the disgusting. Yet how often is this allowed to appear in children's books' When it does, it is carefully sanitised so as not to offend adult sensibilities. Almost every title that has ever attempted to make story out of the messy, the uncouth and the horrible that so fascinates boys has attracted criticism or outright bans. Paul Jennings' stories were initially dismissed as toilet jokes. Roald Dahl's "The Twits" was castigated for the nose picking and other filthy habits portrayed. Raymond Briggs' "Fungus the Bogey Man" was banned in some US States and a Principal I once worked under tried to ban "How to Eat Fried Worms" simply because of the title. All of these books have achieved legendary status, especially amongst boys. They are all quite well written as well, yet managed to avoid "sanitization." Libraries and bookshops stock them with relish. But there are many more books that fall outside the bounds of what is counted worthy. Series horror in the vein of the Goosebump phenomenon in the early 1990s are typical. These are formula stories, with at times ghastly and gory events described in their pages. Adults disdain them, even fear them. Yet such books have managed to do what many teachers, librarians and parents have tried to do but failed. They have found the right wave length for boys. Boys actually want to read them. So here is my heresy. The books we need to spark an interest amongst the reluctant reader may not be "good" books at all but books that do not rate well on the criteria of literary merit. Should we fret about this' No. Here is an ever greater heresy. A story is words on a page. Reading it involves decoding those words to make meaning. Perceptions of quality are judgements applied arbitrarily on top of this. What adults value in a book is not necessarily what boys value in a book. It does not have to be the same, either, except in one vital aspect. If we are to address reluctance to read, both adults and boys must value material that boys do want to read. Adults must be prepared to let boys walk amongst familiar territory before they are asked to run amid the richness that the wider adult world offers. There is plenty of scope for that amongst the books read TO boys. Am I saying here that we should immerse our boys in nothing but dross' No, I am saying that when we are encouraging boys to invest their time and effort in something they have so far seemed reluctant to do, we should consult them sincerely about what they might actually want to read. Then there is a chance they will see that, hey, reading is all right, reading is cool fun, reading can be full of the stuff that appeals to them, makes them laugh, makes them recoil with the cry, "That's gross," and makes them quickly thrust the book under the nose of a mate with the words, "Hey, you gotta read this." This is how we build a culture of books and reading amongst our boys. As they mature towards manhood, their fascination for the ghoulish and disgusting will wane but what will proceed into manhood with the boys is a culture of reading established and nourished through the years of boyhood. In this, do we risk denying boys all the wonderful things books of high literary quality can offer' No, not if we are reading the good books to them ourselves, at home and in the classroom. When the book is thoughtfully selected, reluctant readers love being read to. As noted earlier, once an adult takes over the effort of reading, a boy can sit back and enjoy access to more difficult texts which offer the "higher" qualities listed earlier. That is why reading to your son is so vital and why it should continue as long as he still enjoys being read to, even at twelve or thirteen years of age. In the mean time he finds his boyishness identified and celebrated in the books he reads for himself. He reads them happily, books become a part of his life and his reading skills are constantly practised and improved, even though the quality of what he reads may not always meet with the approval of some. When the day comes for him to say, "Mum (or Dad), I don't want you to read to me any more," the reason will be because he is already reading books of similar calibre for himself. He will read such books, because his immaturity is falling away and he wants something more than mere boyishness in what he reads for himself. He will read these books because he is comfortable with the culture of reading that has been built around him.