Reading Matters Winter 2019

in repairing boys’ identities as readers and writers (Gee, 2007). Perhaps then, the perceived reading achievement gap is due to the discourses of power promoted at school rather than the actual reading comprehension skills of students. Therefore, it is imperative for schools to move away from curriculum that promotes dominant literacy and focus instead on valuing the home literacy and learning of students by incorporating such knowledge into classroom curriculum (Gonzalez et al., 2005). Text Selection When considering the need to widen the definition of valued literacy, the area of text selection reveals great potential for harnessing boys’ individual literacy practices. Typical classroom curriculum promotes fiction books or novels as the valued reading material in school. According to one study, over 85% of books in elementary classroom libraries across a large district were paperback fiction texts (Doiron, 2007). While fiction is the favored text of females, boys typically prefer non-fiction texts or readings that pertain to purposeful and practical life application (Boltz, 2007; Doiron, 2007; Harkrader & Moore, 1997; Marinak & Gambrell, 2010; Merisuo-Storm, 2006; Simpson, 1996; Watson & Kehler, 2012). Thus, to enact true curriculum change, educators will need to do more than simply incorporate a novel with a male protagonist into the syllabus. Curriculum will need to make space for diverse texts and literate practices that appeal to the individual interests of students. For example, when creating a text set, teachers can maintain their primary print text while also adding maps, graphs, picture books, Youtube videos, websites, and graphic novels. In fact, research shows that when using diversified texts, both genders benefit: “PISA results indicate that students who read fiction, nonfiction, magazines, newspapers, and other traditional and electronic print sources have the highest levels of engagement and achievement” (Brozo et al., 2014, p. 591). Two countries addressing the male reading achievement gap through text selection are Germany and Ireland. In 2012, a researcher at the University of Cologne and a children’s book author collaborated in the creation of an internet website ( Boys and Books ) promoting the reading interests of boys. The website was aimed at males aged 6 through 18 and endorsed texts and literacy activities that boys found engaging (Brozo et al., 2014). Furthermore, in Ireland in 2011, the Department of Education launched a nation-wide initiative called the National Strategy to Improve Literacy and Numeracy (NSILN). The implementation of the NSILN was a direct reaction to the continued gender gap apparent in the PISA data. The strategy required changes in curriculum, including the “need to provide boys with more opportunities to engage with nonliterary texts and other texts in which they show an interest” (p. 589). The NSILN also addressed the importance of disciplinary literacy along with increasing student engagement with diverse texts across all subject areas. Digital Texts. In widening the type of texts used in the classroom, it is important to consider digital media and technology as valuable texts. In the past, print-based texts were promoted in the classroom with digital texts relegated to out-of-school activities. Yet, research shows boys prefer digital-based texts

Recommendations Boy-friendly policies in literacy education do not exist yet in the United States due in part to the implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2001 and the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in 2009 (Brozo et al., 2014). Neither education policy outlines goals for closing the reading gender achievement gap, rather it was believed that NCLB and CCSS would naturally narrow achievement gaps across all subject areas. However, many argue the higher achievement level demanded by CCSS will only exacerbate the problem by widening the literacy gap based on demographic characteristics such as socioeconomic status, race, and gender. For this reason, we adhere to a sociocultural perspective of education which asserts knowledge and learning are constructed through human interaction and are products of one’s social and cultural community (Bakhtin, 1981; Vygotsky, 1978). According to Vygotsky (1978), “learning is a necessary and universal aspect of the process of developing culturally organized, specifically human psychological functions” (p. 90). In essence, knowledge is not a static entity transmitted from teacher to student but a collaborative process in which new learning is constructed through multiple and diverse lived experiences (Langer, 2011). Students, then, enter classrooms with pre-existing language and literacy knowledge grounded in the cultural, social, and historical worlds of their out-of-school lives. Gonzalez, Moll, and Amanti (2005) encourage teachers to use these funds of knowledge to plan an authentic and motivating curriculum for their students. In our recommendations for addressing the literacy gender gap, we posit this begins by expanding what literacies and texts are valued and utilized in the classroom. Further, we suggest teachers should give students more autonomy in selecting the texts they read in school. Valued Literacy Because “literacy is defined by increasingly narrow terms in schools” (Curwood, 2013, p. 425), educators must be diligent in introducing a wide variety of literacies to students in order to prevent the stigma of devalued literacy practices in the classroom. According to Street (1995), “schooled literacy turns out to be the product of western assumptions about schooling, power, and knowledge rather than being necessarily intrinsic to literacy itself” (p. 110). Thus, students from diverse backgrounds have significant funds of knowledge that enhance and support literacy practices learned in the home; however, these diverse home literacies are not valued in the classroom (Gonzalez et al., 2005; Street, 1995). Take for example the ethnographic study conducted by Kirkland (2013) which spotlights the highly undervalued and oftentimes invisible literate practices of African American boys—whose “language was an element of their being” (p. 73). Tattoos, raps, magazines, and newspaper articles about sports were all highly valued reading material in these young men’s homes because they “bore witness to…Black masculine cultures” (p. 73). Yet, these texts are often dismissed as irrelevant in the classroom because they did not align with the discourse of power (White, middle-class) prevalent in the education system. By incorporating the individually valued literacy practices of students in school curriculum, educators confirm the worth of diverse literacy practiced by boys and aid

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