New Study Shows Boys Lagging Behind Girls in Reading

I read the article, New Study Shows Boys Lagging Behind Girls in Reading by Ron Claiborne and Hanna Siegel on the NCTE inbox. As a future teacher I found this article extremely compelling. The studies have shown across all 50 states that girls have achieved higher reading achievements than boys. The study shows that this result is not only true in every state but it is true amongst every grade level as well.
In my own personal experiences working in a prekindergarten and first grade classrooms I have never noticed this trend. After reading this article I am now looking back at my interactions with the children and am seeing this has been a trend, I have just been blind to it until now. I work in a prekindergarten classroom over the summer months with very bright children. Each of the children are able to read a few words, that is true for both the female and males in the class. However, there were two children within the class that were starting to read actual books by the end of the summer. Both of these children were girls. I also work in a first grade classroom at Clymore Elementary once a week this semester. I help out with the reading and writing groups during the mornings. There are two different level groups, the advanced readers and the slow readers. The majority of the students in the advanced group are girls. There are ten students in the group and only three of them are male students. Meanwhile in the slow reading group the ratio of girls to boys is about equal. Although I have never personally noticed this difference in reading ability it is a present trend in the schools I personally have worked in.
There are several theories associated with the reasoning behind this trend but as a future educator I am more concerned with how to fix this rising problem. We need o take the time to address the situation, and spend more time getting the male students interested in reading. We need to make sure our assigned books and available free reads in the classroom are of interest to both the female and male students. It is proven a child is more likely to want to read, or learn in general if it is about a topic they are interested in. Therefore we need to make sure we have appropriate reading materials that interest the boys as well as the girls in our classrooms. There are several steps we as teachers need to take to help close this gap instead of allowing it to widen even further. I believe grabbing boys interest in reading is the first step to achieving this goal, and I believe it should begin at the early stages of literacy.

Guest Speakers

On Thursday I attended the Friendly City Reading Series in transitions. The program had two published authors come and read excerpts from their published works. Then at the end they stayed to answer questions that the audience had. I was surprised on how many students and faculty showed up for the event. I had not previously heard of either female authors but I found their selected readings to be very interesting. The second speaker, Gina Welch had written a book entitled "In the Land of the Believers." I found her writing and experiences she shared with us to be very compelling. Her memoir was about her journey to becoming a member of the evangelical church. She shared several excerpts from her memoir that were specific experiences she remembered in her bible camps and singles ministry program. I loved how her writing was enriched with specific details. She told a story with specific conversations and great detail. For example of the stories she added the fact that one of the characters was "chomping on his gum." In my writing I always neglect to add specific details like this, although they are not very significant I believe they make someones writing that much better. I thought she had an interesting story being that she was very anti-religious then decided to write about her journey into becoming a member of the evangelical church. I was fortunate to be able to attend the event, I enjoyed hearing the excerpts of both authors. I believe hearing and reading published works helps me develop my own writing in a unique way.

In the Company of Children

I found this book by Joanne Hindley to be very insightful. She describes several experiences working in the public school system in New York City. I particularly found her experiences, teaching tips, and ideas to be very helpful because I would also like to work with inner city elementary school children.
I found the discussion between Joanne Hindley and her nine year old student Billy very compelling. He uses a metaphor when describing his feelings on writing in a notebook. "Well, writing just stories and then having a writer's notebook is kind of like the difference between driving on the highway and taking the scenic route. You see when you drive on the highway you kind of go by everything so fast you don't really have time to think about it-it's a blur because you're really thinking about getting to the final destination. When you take the scenic route, you slow down and pay attention and probably notice things that you have never noticed before." (12)
The boy describes writing in his notebook like taking the scenic route. It is an outlet for him to write what he truly cares about and is passionate about. Having his own writer's notebook is a positive experience for him which has helped him develop his writing. This boy gave Joanne his insight into why keeping a writer's notebook is greatly different than just writing separate pieces. The notebook is personal and a chance for writers to get out their thoughts in any form that they like. Joanne was inspired by this student in her class and she herself began keeping a writers notebook. She also encouraged her fellow colleagues to keep a writer's notebook and discussed the benefits they could provide for teachers as well. The entire chapter incorporates methods, ideas, and reasons for using these notebooks in her personal life along with in her classroom. I thought it was interesting how she shared her writing in her notebook to her students. Before making them write their own notebooks she read several passages from hers. This provided them with examples of situations where they could express their ideas in writing and it would be appropriate. She also shared these stories with them because she wanted them to know she thought it was meaningful and she herself would be doing it to. I enjoyed the different teaching tips she shared at the end of the chapter. She even went as far as providing a list of ways to incorporating notebooks into your classroom. I found her stories as well as tips to be very helpful as I myself have to start thinking of creative ways of writing in my own classroom.

Evaluation Question: Do you think the stories, experiences, tips and examples provided in Hindley's text are helpful to future teachers?
Yes, after reading her book I had different feeling about writing in the classroom. I thought it was helpful that she provided examples of the children's writing with the explanations of her reason for doing the activities. She expands on everything and goes into great detail in providing tools for teachers to become effective writing instructors in their own classrooms.

Analysis Question: Compare and contrast Hindley's book to other books we have read for this class or your other education classes about the approach to teaching writing. What parts did you find helpful and useful?
I personally enjoyed Hindley's book and found it to be the most insightful piece of writing we have read for this course thus far. I believe I found it to be most helpful because it dealt with all of the specific questions I had about writing in an elementary public school setting. A lot of the other pieces we have read for class deal with high school level and college level writing. I find those pieces to be interesting however, this book helped me expand my knowledge at the level I am most interested in teaching at.

Application Question: How will you begin to use Hindley's ideas in your own classroom? Offer examples from the text you would like to apply to your own classroom to develop your students writing.
I found the process of having each individual child keep a writers notebook to be a positive idea I would like to use in my classroom. I agree that having free time to write your own thoughts and ideas gives you an outlet to become a mover developed creative writer. I always write best when it is something I care about and I believe that will still hold true for my students. I also liked her idea of having the students bring in their notebooks and decorate them and make them special. I think the author does a great job in making the writing experiences fun for the children and I hope to do the same.