Research
Corner
So
much research, so little time…
Kelly B. Cartwright, Ph.D.
Male Call: Fifth Grade Boys’
Reading
Preferences
Farris, P. J., Werderich, D. E., Nelson, P. A., & Fuhler,
C. J. (2009). The
How
do we get our boys to read? This is a common lament of teachers in
classrooms
across our region (and beyond). We know that girls continually outscore
boys on
national assessments of reading (see the National Assessment of
Educational
Progress at http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/),
but
all too often we have difficulty motivating our boys to read. Pamela
Farris
and her colleagues recently developed an e-pals project to discover
what kinds
of texts 5th grade boys like to read, in order to shed some
light on
this challenging instructional problem.
The students in the project described five features of text that
they
found appealing:
1.
They preferred books that
“looked good” –
and for these boys, looking good meant an attractive cover, such as
those
depicting characters engaged in exciting (or dangerous) adventures, or
an
interesting graphic layout such as those found in graphic novels. For struggling readers, texts with larger
print and wider margins were preferred.
2.
Boys liked to read series books
or books
written by a well-liked author; returning to familiar characters or
voice was
motivating for these students.
3.
Boys also preferred sequel
books, such as
Harry Potter, because they enjoyed following the same characters in
various
adventures over time. Often, such characters were preferred because
they were
depicted realistically, with “believable flaws” that were overcome
throughout
the course of the text.
4.
Not surprisingly, boys
preferred
informational texts or factual books that included brief passages
accompanied
by illustrations. These books inspired boys to read more books on a
similar
topic.
5.
Boys often chose books because
teacher
read-alouds inspired their interest in
authors (for
fictional texts) or topics (for informational texts).
This underscores the importance of continuing
to read aloud to students, even in 5th grade!
Making appealing
texts available for boys will motivate them to engage in literacy
activities.
And, Farris and colleagues provide a useful list of suggested texts to
get you
started (see p. 186)!