Physiological Differences

Historically, boys excelled in math and science, and girls lagged. But much effort has been heaped on closing that gap nationally. Researchers and educators are now turning their attention to boys’ struggle to read.

If they don’t, the effect will be dramatic, some predict.

“It’s a man’s world - it’s not a boy’s world,” said William Pollack, a Harvard Medical School professor, author and director of the Centers for Men & Young Men. “We didn’t stop to notice over time that while girls did better with math and science, boys began to fall behind in reading.”

When that trend started is unclear because there is a lack of comparable data, Pollack and others said. What is clear: The situation is not improving.

Pollack offers these statistics:

•Boys learn to read an average of 12 to 15 months later than girls.

•Nationally the gap between girls’ and boys’ reading proficiency is 5 percentage points to 10 percentage points. In writing, it’s 10 percentage points to 15 percentage points.

•About three-quarters of special-education students are boys.

•Poor, black and Hispanic boys struggle the most with reading…

Educators have long recognized that boys and girls learn differently. And new brain research has convinced some that more consideration should be given to the findings.

“Girls’ left brain tends to develop more quickly than boys’ left brain,” said Diane Connell, a professor of New Hampshire’s Rivier College. “That enables girls in kindergarten and first grade to actually do the writing, fine motor skills, sit in their seats longer. They’re even able to hear better. They really do come to school more equipped to read and write.”

Boys’ right brains - responsible for spatial and visual motor skills - develop faster than girls’, so they do better in math, she said.

“It’s a serious crisis right now,” Connell said. “The boys are having the crisis now that girls had 25, 30 years ago.”

Boys prefer hands-on activities and are more selective about what they read than girls. Fluency is a problem for many boys because they don’t read enough, researchers said…

Source: Tampa Tribune
http://www.tbo.com/news/metro/MGB1F0JNE4F.html