Co-Creating Solutions. A CTL-sponsored blog to foster and encourage professional conversation about teaching and learning.

Last month I touched on the topic of males as readers in my blog post Snakes, Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails. The research I interesting to me and motivated me to read more. I skimmed and scanned Boys and Girls Learn Differently! by Michael Gurian. This brain-based research informs teachers how to improve student performance by first understanding how the brain works.

Here are some points made in this teacher and parent guidebook:

1. Boys see better in bright light verses girls who see better in dim light. Also correlates to why boys are less sensitive to the sun than girls. Consider how this is important in classroom design and classroom instruction.

2. Boys do not hear as well as girls. Interesting Fact: girls are 6 Xs more likely to sing in tune over boys. Consider this when positioning boys in relation to teacher position, speakers, etc.

3. Testosterone hormone has direct impact on boy behavior because it is an aggression-inducing chemical. 69% of middle schools males interviewed said fighting is the best conflict resolution. This is why physical education is so important for males. It teaches them to self-manage testosterone. Maybe even makes an argument for mandatory sports? This aggression also has them wanting to show off for girls. This is why separating boys from girls is important. The separation could be in groups, classrooms or even in lunchroom. The book talks about how many lunchroom discipline problems arise and how removing the girls from the boys will minimize these problems. Hmmm…boys go through puberty within the window of 9-15 and the changes can take up to four years. Wow!!!

4. Boys have a far greater academic success rate after puberty. Another wow for me! Eighth-grade boys are 50% more likely to be held back at 8th grade than an eighth-grade girl. IQ scores for boys rise dramatically from ages 14-16. (Side Note: Performance on writing exam drops by 14% for females during menstrual cycle; interesting.)

5. Boys are spatial and therefore tend to take up more space in a class. Boys like to stretch out arms, legs, have space between each other. Important to honor this because movement helps to stimulate brain and relieve impulsive behavior. The spacing allows a boy to self-manage his need to kick, flick, or pick on someone close by. The book also suggests routine 60 second movement breaks for males.

6. Boys are more developed in the brain’s right hemisphere. Therefore, they tend to do better with symbolic texts, diagrams, and graphs. Consider a literature class. Girls tend to ponder the emotional workings of a character where as a boy tends to focus on author’s symbolism and imagery patterns.

7. Boys benefit from character education that’s absorbed into all classes. Boys need practice with peer-dilemmas scenarios to learn how to appropriately respond to situations. Important middle school teachers take time to mentor these students. Their first reaction is to fight so we have to equip them with more appropriate reactions.

8. Boys may try to become an Alpha and dominate and destroy. Why do they do this? Interesting analogy. A group of young elephants had been brought up in Africa without parents. When their testosterone came in, they began killing rhinos (not usual behavior) and trying to mate inappopriately. Park warden ordered them be put to sleep until a ranger suggested these adolescent elephants needed elder elephants to act as role models. Without guidance from elders, the elephants were following their hormonal pressures without guidance, much like our young boys. After a week of bringing in the elder elephants, the inappropriate behaviors stopped. How does this transfer to our students? Provide mentors. The Alpha research also supports a need for dress code because boys will dress toward dominance strategies (gang, hip-hop).

9. As boys are learning to manage their hormones, schools can help by managing their diets. Switch out processed foods for natural foods like vegetables, nuts, instant oatmeals, granola bars, air-popped popcorn, hard-boiled eggs, low-fat yogurt, low-fat cottage cheese, fresh/fronzen/dried fruit, reduced-fat cheese, whole grain crackers, peanut butter, healthy cereals.

What I most appreciate about the book is that the author does not stop with the biological research but closes with practical solutions and applications. The book would make for an interesting book study for parents, teachers, and administrators looking for brain-based instructional approaches.

We all know the nursery rhyme that suggests boys are made from unpleasant things like snakes, snails and puppy dog tails while girls are made from pleasant things like sugar and spice. The nursery rhyme, aside from the teasing, points out that boys and girls are different.

Gender differences, specifically in the context of a learning environment, have always been of interest to me, especially after having one class of eleventh graders where 17 of the 23, or 74%, were male.

A book I wish I’d read prior to teaching these boys is Reading Don’t Fix No Chevy’s: Literacy in the Lives of Young Boys (Smith & Wilheim, 2002). Consider some of the big ideas I pulled from this professional text.

1) Boys like to collect things and tend to like to collect series of books like Goosebumps and Harry Potter. Consider placing series from a variety of genres in your classroom library or having the librarian do a book talk for your students about the available ones in the library.

2) Boys tend to resist reading stories about girls, whereas girls do not tend to resist reading stories about boys. Consider finding a balance between texts about girls, texts about boys, and texts about both sexes.

3) The appearance of a book cover is important to boys. One way to get a boy interested in reading is by carefully selecting a book edition that has a stimulating cover. Consider how you could guide students in making predictions and inferences from book covers.

4) Boys prefer readings that provide immediate and clear feedback. A male student will read informational texts, such as magazines or newspapers, to address an immediate interest or need. A boy will read a video game magazine to learn secret codes, and then immediately use that information in the context of a game. Consider how an interest inventory would help you with text selections.

5) Boys like to read texts with game-like structures. The popular Choose Your Own Adventure series by Bantam Books fits into this genre. Consider what other game-like structured texts are available and make them available in your classroom library.

6) Boys like service projects during a learning experience. Consider having students engage in projects where they are using text to rebuild, repair, construct, or remodel. Next time you have a boxed item like a piece of furniture or toy, bring it in and have your students read the instructions and then assemble it.

7) Boys are influenced by frienships, family, and significant others when selecting text. Consider giving them opportunity to hear what others are reading in a more engaging format from the traditional book review. Consider a Real Men Read campaign where male teachers promote a favorite book.

8 ) Boys become invested in text when they develop relationships with the characters. Consider young males highly interested in sports. They watch the sports and keep track of losses, wins, stats, and also of the athletes on a personal level. They are reading about them in sports magazines, watching stories about them on sports television, trading them in the form of cards, picking them as characters on video games…the list goes on and on. It’s kind of like a soap-opera world for boys as they watch players’ stories unfold. Consider if the texts you are selecting have characters with which the boys will develop relationships.

9) Boys prefer the classroom to look like a lab. Consider having stations in your classroom where students are up and moving every 10-15 minutes and working collaboratively to solve problems.

10) Boys prefer exportable texts. These are texts that boys can easily export into conversation. A boy will read the financial section of a newspaper to gain information about the stock market and translate the information into talking points in conversation with those around him who share this interest. Consider the use of the interest inventory to identify exportable texts and also as insight to engage in conversation with your male students.

This book was insightful to what boys really are made up of as readers. The above list makes up only 10 of the many points I gained. It’s a valuable research based compilation of insight for parents of sons and teachers of boys. Not only does it provide the research to support boys and girls learn differently, it provides suggestions to how to address these differences.