WHY BOYS AREN’T BOOK LOVERS?

ANGIE S. MANASAN

According to Mark twain , “the man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read.” Sad to say, nowadays , children prefer to do various things rather than reading books. As a result, poor reading comprehension is highly evident, especially among boys. A while back, I saw my former teacher at Bacolor Elementary School – Madapdap and asked about her experiences in the school where I am assigned now. She said that teachers during her time had the boys’ struggles with reading, their placement in various programs for extra help, their ingenious evasions and the fake reading that for many becomes the norm. I told her that the same sad scenario is still present in our public school system. I elaborated to her that two points stand out for me. The first concerns attention, this always seemed a moral category, a form of manners and respect – the failure to pay attention was a personal failing. The second area of regard is development. Boys often start more slowly. I revealed to my former mentor that in a recent study of achievement in reading, boys were behind grades in every region surveyed. Reading, one of my students explained, was a “girl thing”. In an insidious way, this failure has been tolerated as natural. Boys are just too active, social, inattentive, non – verbal, media – obsessed to become serious readers of books. It’s just the way things are. Public school teachers especially those who are handling reading classes should try to turn ship around. We should develop books and other reading materials that promote pleasure and moral guidance of literature which is open to everyone. At the same time, we should carefully lay out developmental and physiological constraints that frequently caused boys to start slowly and experience difficulty early. This early experiences of failure and frustration often turns a difficulty into an identity as boys decide they are just “not good at reading”. As the reading expectations increases, a page or print can look like a minefield of an unsure reader. Rather than exposing weaknesses, boys can develop resistant attitudes (“this is stupid” ,”this is boring” ) and develop positive identities they do well , adding problems to that is the presence of network games sprouting anywhere near the school. Some of these nonreaders find a way , much later , to books they love. But some have abandoned reading for good. The less they read, the farther behind they are, the less they want to expose their deficiencies. Increasingly, they are overmatched by the books they are expected to read. But then again, slow starts are not a predictor of long term failure , so long as we can keep boys engaged in reading. No boy that I have ever met would not prefer to be a reader (thought he might bluster that it doesn’t matter). But the same token non will voluntarily and regularly display a lack of competence and be exposed as failing. How, then can we keep boys feel engaged and successful as they work through a developmental period where they may experience difficulty? That, I think is a major educational question for our time…..and a teacher that promotes reading and love of books is a powerful and useful response to this question. We just hope and pray that the world of today’s boys will turn upside down in terms of loving reading books especially in today’s world that they do much love facing gadgets rather than books.

The author

is Teacher

--oOo-

II at Bacolor Elementary School – Madapdap, Bacolor

North Districtct