The statistics tell us that boys are doing significantly worse than girls. At age 11, 70% of girls reach the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, for boys, it’s just 60%. At age 16, two-thirds of the top grades at GCSE are awarded to girls.
As teachers, what can be done on a classroom level to improve boys’ motivation, literacy, learning and achievement?
Here are the top 3:
1. Improve boys’ motivation and literacy
Explain how the learning activity will improve boys’ achievement. Share student-friendly marks schemes (even better, co-write with your students), so they see the associated marks. Show them exemplar exam scripts where students have shown the knowledge or skill, and others which haven’t, and improve the literacy and learning together.
Of course, for some boys, doing better in exams isn’t enough to improve boys’ motivation. For these students, link learning with real-life so that boys can see how it will have an immediate impact on their lives, as well as in the long-term beyond school.
For topics that are challenging to connect to the real-world, focus on replicating the teaching and learning to simulate real-life experiences: introduce risk-taking, a seemingly impossible challenge or competition, and emphasise the literacy skills required to do it successfully.
As all learning requires literacy, point out how the reading, writing, speaking, listening or thinking skills needed for the learning task will – no matter what they’re interested in doing – enable them to be better at it.
2. Improve boys’ reading and literacy
Boys (overall) read less for pleasure than girls, resulting in a vocabulary gap which diminishes boys’ ability to engage with the curriculum, thus impacting learning and exam results.
The key way to improve boys’ reading is for boys to read, and more importantly, enjoy reading. Here are some ways to improve boys’ reading in a way that minimises stress and anxiety, promotes reading and learning and builds motivation and confidence.
When appropriate (say in Drop Everything and Read sessions), let boys read what they want (within reason!) so that they associate reading with pleasure. In lessons, provide them with a choice of material. Exposing boys to a variety of texts adds interest, allows them to become critical readers looking at purpose and audience (thus improving boys’ writing), as well as being excellent exam preparation.
When choosing material, don’t dumb down. Far better to prepare students before the reading activity (re-visiting previous learning, introducing keywords) and support them during and after reading. Offer support on how to tackle unknown words. There are lots of quick and easy strategies for doing this in The Literacy Handbook for Teachers.
3. Improve boys’ learning and literacy
Most boys (as you well know) are not fans of sitting down quietly at their desks — some girls neither (in fact, one-third of girls are more physically active than the average boy.)
So, do your students need to sit down to learn?
Tweak your activities to allow everyone to move around. Here are some examples:
For gathering information: try a Jigsaw or Envoy activity. Jigsaw is when students get into groups. Each member of the group is given a specialist area within that topic. Group members discuss the topic, identifying what they need to find out. Each member then joins another group whose members have the same specialist area. Each group explores their specialist area in detail. After a set time, all members return to their original group to share the information they’ve gathered.
For developing critical thinking: try Influences.
For consolidating knowledge: drama sketches, hot-seating, chat-shows
For a full list of activities to improve learning that requires students to move around, see The Literacy Handbook for Teachers p36.
Links to further reading:
Raising Boys’ Achievement, University of Cambridge Faculty of Education, Mike Younger and Molly Warrington, 2005
Beautiful Minds Education shares links and further information on how to improve boys’ motivation, literacy, learning and achievement.
A Guide to Greatness
‘Literacy myth-busters’ p8
‘The 10 skills you need…and 5 quick fixes’ p10
‘How to intelligently guess the meaning of a word’ p14
‘How to read difficult stuff’ p15
‘How to become a ridiculously good reader’ p22
‘How to know more words’ p23
The Literacy Handbooks for Teachers:
‘Show that reading is fun (no matter what subject you teach)’ p5
‘Know what your students are capable of reading’ p6
‘Make reading interesting’ p7
‘Engage students who think they hate reading’ p9
‘Help your students have great vocabulary’ p10
‘Teach the reading skills students need to be successful in exams’ p11
‘Get your reluctant writers writing’ p19
‘A note on boys and writing’ p20
‘Teach the writing skills students need to be successful in exams’ p23
‘Create interesting speaking and listening activities to improve subject learning’ p35 (this includes the full list of learning activities that require students to move around)
