I’ve been working on some op-eds and articles on various topics for a while now, but school and work and all the pressures of live have kept me from finishing things recently (or maybe it’s just professionalism). Whatever the case, I’ve decided to post some previous work just to get some of my ideas out there. I wrote the following paper last year for a writing class. Honestly, I feel like my writing has improved a lot since then, but I liked the topic of this essay and I hope you enjoy 😉

Reading is For Girls: The Gender Reading Gap

The written word is uniquely human. One of the biggest differences between humanity and other living things is our advanced communication capabilities. Reading and writing are concepts so heavily used and ingrained in our society that anyone who cannot do one or the other well will be severely disadvantaged – it is no wonder these skills are heavily focused on in education systems globally. Unfortunately, one major demographic seems to be slipping through the cracks of these systems. Decades of studies and testing have shown that boys of all grades and levels reliably display lower ability in various reading skills compared to girls of the same ages.

As an older sister and devoted reader, I’ve witnessed the gender reading gap firsthand. Though my parents raised my brother and I the same way when it came to books, he learned to read and gained fluency a lot more slowly than I did, and even now he would rather do anything else than read for fun. As a follower of Jesus, I know God made men and women with unique strengths and weaknesses. Global societies, however, have often twisted this perfect design and held back both genders in different ways throughout history. To fully realize the Creator’s design for the partnership and complementary nature of men and women, it is important to work towards a reality where both genders are free to pursue God’s plan for them without a disadvantage in an essential skill.

To understand the possible causes behind the problem and eventually find a solution, the problem itself must be studied: what are the differences between boys and girls when it comes to reading? The most popular metric currently being used to test various academic abilities in more than 81 countries is the PISA, or Programme for International Student Assessment. Jodie Fonseca and her collaborators used this metric in a study done to determine the scope of the reading issue, analyzing data from a diverse array of countries in their paper “Girls Have Academic Advantages and So Do Boys: A Multicountry Analysis of Gender Differences in Early Grade Reading and Mathematics Outcomes.” The researchers show that regardless of the country’s development level or the average education quality, boys usually underperform compared to girls in the reading section of the PISA. While the gap between the genders does not change much as the children develop, it is obvious that when girls begin reading, they gain fluency and improve in comprehension faster than boys do. These statistics are not an all-around reflection of academic ability, however. The opposite trend is true when it comes to mathematics: boys start at the same level as girls, but develop more quickly as they learn (Fonseca 7). Decades of research support the conclusion that girls seem to be better than boys at reading and reading improvement.

This phenomenon could become very problematic if allowed to continue: the importance of reading in every society leaves those without the necessary skills at a disadvantage. Eleanor Mulcahy and her collaborators’ report “The Relationship Between Reading Age, Education, and Life Outcomes” shows how an individual’s “reading age,” or where they line up with the average reading level of their age, can impact their life. Not only does low reading age lead to lower grades and academic success, but a link has also been found between reading age and employment, health, crime risk, mental health, home ownership, and more (Mulcahy 3). Every corner of modern life requires some form of reading, from high-paying jobs to social connections on the Internet. If boys continue to lag behind girls in this area, they will be at risk of relative academic underachievement and future career and social problems.

Working towards a solution requires an understanding of the various possible causes – the first of these being that boys tend to read less in general. Professors Xu Wen and Yanyu Wang connected this idea to the reading ability gap in their study “Gender differences in reading medium, time, and text types: Patterns of student reading habits and the relation to reading performance.” Wen and Wang describe how for both boys and girls, particular amounts of time spent leisure reading are associated with increased reading skill benefits, such as growing vocabulary, practicing automaticity (the ability of humans to understand a word quickly even with just the first and last letters and context), and building comprehension (Wen 18). Interestingly enough, that amount of time differs between genders – two hours plus for girls and one to one and a half hours for boys – but the conclusion is clear: reading for fun, outside of school, can complement classroom education in the reading fluency process. The issue is that boys do not read as much outside of school as girls (Wen 4). What could be stopping boys from reading more at home?

A variety of cultural and biological factors could contribute to boys’ apparent disinterest in leisure reading, but some researchers have attributed the phenomenon to domestic and cultural norms. In Kate Summers’ paper “Adult Reading Habits and Preferences in Relation to Gender Differences,” she describes how some surveys have shown a connection between the likelihood of an individual maintaining reading habits through life and the reading encouragement of a parent. If a child is consistently encouraged to read, they are 4.69 times more likely to read into adulthood. The same surveys also show that only 32.6% of men reported that they were told to “read often” as children (Summers 3). Boys who lack reading-positive parents are less likely to develop a love of reading.  Father and author David Booth speculates in his book Even Hockey Players Read that just as boys inherit certain behaviors through observation of their fathers, their fathers may also influence young boys’ reading habits. Booth states that households where male readers are present will probably be more likely to produce more male readers (Booth 18). He also discusses the common stereotypes that men are less empathetic and “feeling” than women. If most English class curriculums and children’s books are narrative-based and focus on emotional response, Booth wonders if boys could simply be less interested in these topics. They might even feel as though they are not “masculine” enough if they do happen to be interested (Booth 17). These cultural norms could create a taboo around reading – for certain types of material or altogether – for young boys.

The possible cause for the differences in boy’s and girl’s achievement could also lie in the school systems. Until recent decades, education worldwide has been very male-oreinted, sometimes even barring women from formal education entirely. With the expansion of equality and social justice from the 20th and 21st centuries, schools have adapted to not only include women but have become areas for females to thrive. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, colleges now show a trend of higher female-to-male enrollment (Ginder 15), and girls are more likely to graduate high school than boys (Digest 1). In the quest for gender equality in schools, could the education of boys have slipped through the cracks? Jan Hochweber and Svenja Vieluf aimed to study this question in their paper “Gender Differences in Reading and Enjoyment of Reading: The Role of Perceived Teaching Quality.” The authors discuss how many have hypothesized that the gender of the teacher or more “girl-friendly” classroom content could influence the reading gap. With an experiment testing the success of 10,543 15-year-old boys and girls in reading ability across 427 classrooms, Hochweber and Vieluf aimed to find a classroom solution that would benefit both boys and girls, based on the metrics of “structure, cognitive activation, and support” (Hochweber 3). Their findings indicated that better student-perceived quality in those three areas resulted in not only a less pronounced gap between the reading achievement and enjoyment of girls over boys but also overall growth between both genders. The teacher’s gender and other previously hypothesized classroom variables did not correlate with statistically significant data changes (Hochweber 22). Improving the overall quality of the classroom experience could reduce the issue without requiring an imbalance of attention toward boys over girls.

The attitudes and expectations of teachers for the boys in their classes could be preventing them from reaching their full potential in reading. Ingela Åhslund and Lena Boström’s study “Teachers’ Perceptions of Gender Differences – What About Boys and Girls in the Classroom?” analyzes information from teachers and other background studies to discover what gender differences educators see that could point to a gender reading gap solution. The researchers found that while teachers feel their treatment of boys and girls is equal, other research has shown that their expectations of success and behavior of boys are generally lower than they are for girls. This involuntary discrimination is not entirely unfounded, however; the teachers admitted that the difference in behavior of boys and girls in the classroom contributes to the teacher’s attitudes. Boys often require more disciplinary attention from the teacher, while girls speak to the teacher to complement their learning more. Girls most often approach their education focusing on personal progress, while boys seem to focus more on competition and success. Boys also have a greater risk of choosing not to try in school for fear of failure. In Åhslund and Boström’s survey in particular, the teachers (of both genders) answered that girls were more likely to achieve the goals of the class, understand expectations, be motivated to learn, and complete work well independently. Boys were more likely to have difficulty sitting still, have off-topic conversations, take a long time to get started on work, compete to finish assignments first, and do very little assigned work in class (Åhslund 39). These traits result in a struggle for boys to thrive in a classroom environment, explaining behavior that causes teachers to see them as underprepared, underachieving, and less mature than the girls. Whether or not teachers feel as though they treat both genders equally, an individual’s previous stereotypes can always sneak into their behavior. Expecting boys to miss the mark could create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The final major possible cause of the gender reading gap is the homogeneity of classrooms and education systems. American society has been moving towards complete “equality” between genders for a long time, but neglecting to give weight to the inherent, God-given differences between men and women that make it impossible to treat each sex with the world’s definition of “equality.” When the movement occurred in education systems to better accommodate women, schools did not consider how it might be important for boys and girls to be taught differently to best appeal to their unique, natural preferences. Åhslund and Boström’s study also surveyed the same teachers on their most common classroom methods, finding that teachers used lecture-style teaching most often, followed by individual work time, and finally interactive or group work (Åhslund 37). Based on the trends in boy and girl behaviors and motivations discussed above, lectures and individual work seem to be well suited to girls. Unfortunately for boys, who prefer competition, have difficulty sitting still, and have more conversations in class, these types of learning strategies are probably not the best for their learning style. Interactive or group work assignments might serve boys better, but remain the last resort of the teachers. The researchers proposed that perhaps catering and adjusting teaching style to boys and girls would help both to understand the material better, even if it might not be considered “equal” by today’s standards (Åhslund 40). Men and women are undeniably different, and those differences could cause problems like the reading gap when ignored.

From personal reading habits and home life to classroom environment, the gender reading gap has many possible causes, and, therefore, many possible solutions. To best equip each gender to fulfill their roles within God’s perfect design, educators, parents, and Christians need to continue studying this reading phenomenon and searching for ways to prevent boys from falling behind.

Works Cited

Åhslund, Ingela and Lena Boström. “Teachers’ Perceptions of Gender Differences – What About 

Boys and Girls in the Classroom? International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research, vol. 17, no. 4, April 2018, doi: 10.26803/ijlter.17.4.2. 

Booth, David. Even Hockey Players Read. Pembroke P, 2002, p. 17-39. 

“Digest of Education Statistics.” U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education 

Statistics, 2019. 

Fonseca, Jodie, et. al. “Girls Have Academic Advantages and So Do Boys: A Multicountry 

Analysis of Gender Differences in Early Grade Reading and Mathematics Outcomes.” 

RTI Press, no. RR-0049-2305, Spring 2023, doi: 10.3768/rtipress.2023.rr.0049.2305. 

Ginder, Scott, Janice Kelly-Reid and Farrah Mann. “Graduation Rates for Selected Cohorts, 

2009–14; Outcome Measures for Cohort Year 2009–10; Student Financial Aid, Academic Year 2016–17; and Admissions in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2017.” U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics, 2018. 

Hochweber, Jan, and Svenja Vieluf. “Gender Differences in Reading Achievement and 

Enjoyment of Reading: The Role of Perceived Teaching Quality.” Journal of Educational Research, vol. 111, no. 3, May 2018, pp. 268–83, doi: 10.1080/00220671.2016.1253536.

Mulcahy, Ellie, Eleanor Bernardes and Dr Sam Baars. “The Relationship Between Reading Age, 

Education, and Life Outcomes.” The Center for Education & Youth, 2019. 

Summers, Kate. “Adult Reading Habits and Preferences in Relation to Gender Differences.”

RUSQ: A Journal of Reference and User Experience, vol. 52, no. 3, Spring 2013, p. 243-249, doi: 10.5860/rusq.52.3.3319.

Wen, Xu and Yanyu Wang. “Gender Differences in Reading Medium, Time, and Text Types: 

Patterns of Student Reading Habits and the Relation to Reading Performance.” Reading 

and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 37, no. 8, Oct. 2024, doi: 10.1007/s11145-023-10446-y.