Do Boys and Girls Read Differently?

A few differences have been noticed between the way boys and girls learn and develop certain skills. It is important to understand the differences between their learning styles before being able to successfully engage and teach them.

Reading and comprehension is one subject in which girls excel at while boys take a little longer to learn and to grasp new concepts.

Boys, in general, take longer to learn something new, especially reading. This could be partly because boys tend to read less than girls and therefore don’t get the same amount of practice.

Girls tend to understand narrative texts and expository more significantly than boys and they seem to grasp deeper, underlying subjects more easily. And yet, boys tend to be better at information retrieval and work-related literacy tasks that require hands-on work.

Concerning attitude, boys estimate that they can do less and read less than they can actually do. Boys don’t like to view reading as an activity while girls spend their leisure time reading.

Understanding these attitude and learning-style differences is important because once you understand the way boys learn, you can tailor your teaching and help them learn more.

This information is taken from Me Read? No Way! A Practical Guide to Improving Boys’ Literacy Skills.