The National Literacy Trust has noted that girls continue to outpace boys in their enthusiasm for reading for pleasure. Their latest study also found that nearly twice as many boys as girls said they do not enjoy reading at all, by 13% to 7%.
“Too many boys still seem disinterested in reading, and far, far too many children simply never become readers at all. So we writers and illustrators and storytellers, and parents and teachers, and publishers and booksellers, must continue to play our part,” said the celebrated writer for young adults Michael Morpurgo.
So what do teachers think we need to do to ensure more boys enjoy literature? Here are some of the best ideas from our community:
Find writers boys can relate to
“I tore through books when I was a young child, but when I turned 12 or so there was a real fallow period. I felt too old for the books I had been reading and didn’t yet understand more mature texts. Things have developed a lot in the last 10 years with the rise of the young-adult fiction market, but I still think that pre-adolescent gap is where a lot of boys get lost to reading. For me, the catalyst to loving literature again was when I was introduced to a writer who I felt I had connections to – Iain Banks. We were both from Fife, and the characters in his books spoke like me and thought like me. I think that was an important realisation, that writers aren’t all from far-off places, and books don’t all revolve around fantastical characters.
“So maybe that could be one way to re-engage boys with reading: finding local writers online, with ideas they will relate to, worries they will share, voices they can recognise and characters that they understand. Writers are always happy to come into schools to do visits and workshops.”
Alan Gillespie teaches English at Fernhill school in Glasgow.