Two Inspiring Books for HS Boys

Take a look at the two inspiring books suggested for high school boys on the Kids Learning Stuff blog -http://kidslearningstuff.blogspot.com/search?q=carson
Both books - Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story and A Sense of Where You Are: Bill Bradley at Princeton would be good considerations for a high school library. Thanks, Mary, for sharing with us.

Michael Sullivan's Books for Boys

Michael Sullivan, author of Connecting Boys with Books, has a great web site that includes this page, Books for Boys. He includes a list of picture books and chapter books ranked by difficulty- low to advanced. . . and the list is updated to include some new (2006) titles. I got lots of new titles to add to my next book order. Check it out at http://www.talestoldtall.com/BooksforBoys.html

Ideas to get boys reading - Other blogs' posts

While surfing the blogsphere tonight, I found several other blog posts of interest about "get Johnny reading":
Blogs:
Arthur Slade: Writing for Young Adults
Boys2Read Post
http://arthurslade.blogspot.com/2006/08/boys2read.html
Rockin’ and Readin’ Literature Post
http://arthurslade.blogspot.com/2006/08/rockin-and-readin-literature.html
Tim Fredrick’s ELA Teaching Blog
http://timfredrick.typepad.com/timfredrick/choice/index.html
“Helping Adolescent Boys Be More Engaged in the ELA Classroom”
BookLust
http://storms.typepad.com/booklust/2006/04/i_got_posted_7.html
boys vs. girls reading – “morphing” literacy

Be sure to post your success stories in "get Johnny reading" here!

Reading List -"Johnny Won't Read"

Here is a list of readings related to "get Johnny reading." You will very likely find, not only interesting statistics, but some ideas to help your male students read more.

**The United States is not alone in this concern about boys' level of reading. Be sure to check out the resources on the National Literacy Trust site from the United Kingdom.

Why Johnny Won’t Read by Mark Bauerlein and Sandra Stotsky
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33956-2005Jan24.html
“From 1992 to 2002, the gender gap in reading by young adults widened considerably. In overall book reading, young women slipped from 63 percent to 59 percent, while young men plummeted from 55 percent to 43 percent.”

The Education Gender Gap: Why are boys not making the grade?
http://www.wrrb.org/forum_060519.pdf
What has educational research suggested?
School libraries carry many fewer books of appeal to boys.
Few if any boys’ books have been published in the past 30 years
School librarians/teachers discourage boys from reading the kinds of books that do appeal
to them.

Help Wanted: Boys Reading by Laura Sokal
http://www.ldac-taac.ca/Research/boys_reading-e.asp

Douglass Elementary School in Boulder, Colorado has had enormous success in closing the reading gap: www.douglasselementary.com. More information about Douglass Elementary is available here: www.douglasselementary.com/gendergap.pdf
“Offering some opportunities for single-sex activities within a classroom (i.e. all-boy
literature circle)

National Literacy Trust Research – UK
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Research/researchindex3.html
Reading Champions – UK based project
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/campaign/Champions/school.html
Reading Champions Toolkit - Great resource, especially page 6 –“What Works-The Twenty First Century Boy”
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/campaign/Champions/RCtoolkit.pdf
Reading for Pleasure – A Research Overview (National Literacy Trust – UK)
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Research/Reading%20for%20pleasure.pdf