Connecting Boys and Books with Michael Sullivan

"Folks we made being a boy a learning disability" said Michael Sullivan, author, storyteller and presenter, couldn't read in the 3rd grade, and it seems to have inspired his life's work. "My people are the people at the bottom." I have to LEAVE public school to get out of remedial reading; I went to to a prep school and 3 years later, I was at Harvard."

People accept the fact that boys don't read as much as or as well as girl; they read about a year and a half behind girls the same age at the elementary level, and three years behind at the high school level.

• The average 15-year-old girl reads 4.5 hours a week, the average 15 year-old boy reads 2.3 hours a week, the following year, girls read 2.6 hours, and boys read 10% less. 
• 35% of boys and 22% of girls don't read, according to survey of college freshman
• 60% of the the As go to girls.
• 70% of the D&Fs go to boys
• Boys are 50% more likely to be held back in school
• 80% of high school dropouts are boys; 80% of convicted felons are high school dropouts. 
• 85% of special ed students are boys
• 70% of students coded ADHD are male, 70% of kids in juvenile detention centers have learning disabilities
  
• up to 95% of kids coding with a learning disability are male 
• 1 out of every 3 boys in American schools are in remedial reading by the time they are in 3rd grade. 

It's not pathalogical, it's a gender issue!

Boys and Girls are DIFFERENT: at age 3, they are a year behind in brain development; in adolescence they are 32 years behind. Girls develop language skills earlier. The average girl's brain reaches full size at age 11 1/2; the average boy's brain reaches full size at 14 1/2

First Reading Experiences:

• Fun storytime
• Bedtime Story
• !st grade: reading is a game 
• 2nd grade: sit in a hard chair and read! now! 

They don't read because we turn it into WORK.

It's easier to say "I don't read" than "I can't read" 

Independent reading is a skill that carries you the rest of your life; too many boys never make that transition. 

Reading levels are extremely destructive; using terms like real books or harder books is a big problem. 

Graduation day means "I'll never have to read again.

Let them read what they want

We push them to read harded and harder matieral

We expect reading HARDER material makes them better readings

There is only one factor that determines your improvement as a reader: PRACTICE

you can't teach anyone how to read; language is so complex, you can't spoon feed it to anyone. The only way to improve is by spending time with text.

Adult popular reading, when lexiled, is 6-8 level.

Remedial reading should be surrounding boys with fun books and telling them to read until they are caught up!  It used to be sentence diagrams, greek and latin roots in the past, worksheets and activities and drills today. The remedial mainstream rate is what the state says it has to be, at some point, the instructor gives up and sends the student back.

They are missing the fun, the structure, and the story. Much of what you gain from story can be gleaned from stories heard, aloud! Sentence structure, grammar, vocabulary, etc. The only thing you don't get is spelling. 

It takes 40,000 to read your average newspaper; at a rate of 10 vocabulary words a week will take 80 years.

Boys think, "when I learn how to read, people will stop reading to me." Teachers tell parents to STOP reading to their independent readers, because the need the practice.

It's all about the standardized test!  

Introduce reading aloud back to schools through Literacy Lunch!

Audio books: better than the movie or the Cliff Notes! And, you can get them free from Perkins Library

Storytelling is for all ages! It shouldn't stop when they are five.

There is a structural difference in boys and girls brains; girls think more holistically because they have  stronger corpus colloseum, which make both sides of the brain work together. Upper level thinking requires both halves of your brain, the creative and the analytical.

By adding stimuli to a boy's environment, we can grow the corpus colloseum. Add:

1. sound
2. color
3. motion
4. kinetic energy
   

Girls don't need outside stimuli to get their brains work. They hear and see better, focus better, pick up facial expression and body language, 6 times more likely to be able to sing in tune.

Where do boys learn? white walls, white ceiling with sound panels, windows with blinds, sound deadening tiles and panels, and restraining device desk. To make your classroom more attractive to boys, paint the walls, hang pinwheels, open the windows, and turn on some music.

We are not being purposefully discriminatory. We set up an atmosphere we wish someone would set up for us! And we are women, not physical expansive creatures.

Want to do a public service? Feed the boys!

Make sure the late bus stops at the library

Yes it can be messy, it can be loud, it can be noisy. meet them halfway; try it for awhile and let them know if it doesn't work out, it will go away. Deal with individual problems, don't punish ALL the kids. 

There is a differece between sports books and novels set in a sports context

Edgy books make the grade, because if we keep giving them what doesn't work, we need to recognize that and try something else.

NEVER take a book out of a child's hand.  Let then self regulate. If he has trouble, read it to him.

Boys this externally, girls think internally. It there is good/evil in the world, there must be good/evil in me. Girls tend to be more emotional and develop empathy. Boys think they need to go out into the world before it passes them by. Leonard Sax theorizes this is why boys put their bodies in physical danger and risking behavior. They need experiential learning. 

Girls think the world works on interpersonal cooperation and communication; boys see the world working on a rules and tools approach.

Literature, Fiction and Novel are all different things. Out of 10,000 free reading choices - boys chose 3 NF to 4 fiction; classrooms book collection was about 80% fiction! Boys want to read NONFICTION.

Resource Allocation - better to send personnel into the classroom (7 programs a day for 5 days a week).

BOOKTALKING for BOYS

• Keep it short
• Bring the books and let them keep/check it out
• Do a bookTALK not a book REVIEW
• When you are booktalking, you are talking to the back of the room
• You are not promoting the book in your hand, you are promoting reading
• Never give a kid a reason not to read a book
• Talk about things boys like: action, fantasy, sports
• Make it interactive
• Show them you honor what they like to read (gross stuff!)
• Lie! Read just the sports scene
  
• "Don't tell anyone I gave you that"
• Cover up the seals - novels (about internal, introspective stuff) win awards, not high fantasy or nonfiction

Boys think of reading as:

1. Solitary
2. Sendentary
3. Feminized 

Boys want to know and how the world works

Boys like nonfiction because of the short and digestable bits and pictures! 

Boys love series! the first 10 page are the hardest, and with a series, you only have to do it once.

Manga is violent and sexual (sexy and sexist) 

Boys are in regression: humor & series  

TRENDS!

• great time to be a fantasy reader
• martial arts action fantasy 
• gothic horror 

NEWBERY AWARD

• no funny books
• no horror books
• few fantasy books
• two NF books

RESOURCES

"Closing the Reading Gap: First Year Findings from a Randomized Trial of Four Reading Interventions for Striving Readers." Newsweek

Sullivan, Michael. Connecting Boys With Books: What Libraries Can Do. ALA Editions, 2003.

Gurian, Michael. Boys and Girls Learn Differently!: A Guide for Teachers and Parents. Jossey-Basse,
2001.

Krashen, Stephen. The Power of Reading: Insights from the Research. (2nd ed.) Libraries Unlimitted,
2004.

Newkirk, Thomas. Misreading Masculinity: Boys, Literacy, and Popular Culture. Heinemann, 2002.
Pennac, Daniel. Better Than Life. Stenhouse, 1999.

Sax, Leonard. Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know About the Emerging Science of Sex Differences. Doubleday, 2005.

Smith, Michael W. & Jeffrey D. Wilhelm. Reading Don’t  Fix No Chevys: Literacy in the Lives of Young Men. Heinemann, 2002.

tags: michaelsullivan  boys  books  

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