Females better at teaching reading to boys: study

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Females better at teaching reading to boys: study

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Apparently this Study left out Catholic School Nuns and their metre long "Ninja Style" rulers.  Not to mention "NUNs With Guns"

Young boys may have a better chance of learning to read when they are taught by women rather than men, suggests a new study that calls into question efforts in some jurisdictions to recruit more male teachers into elementary schools to improve boys' literacy.

Four professors from the University of Alberta and the University of Winnipeg collaborated on a 10-week study of 180 struggling male readers in Grades 3 and 4 to conclude they responded better to the female tutors.

"They seemed more motivated," co-author Herb Katz, an education professor at University of Alberta, said in an interview.

The results, while they do not make sweeping conclusions on the wisdom of hiring male teachers in elementary schools, suggest that a drive to attract more men as a way to improve boys' documented under-achievement in reading could be misguided, said Laura Sokal, an education professor at the University of Winnipeg and another one of the study's authors.

"I would agree that it would call into question that drive," said Sokal, adding that further research is needed. "The idea of this generic male being hired as a model is too simplistic."

Every week for 10 weeks, research assistants visited boys at mainly inner-city schools in Winnipeg. Three-quarters of the delayed readers were from low-income homes and they were reading at a Grade 1 level on average.

The study showed that the children improved overall, regardless of whether they were tutored by men or women. But the students who were taught by females ended up with more confidence in themselves as readers, which is a vital component in future success.

Katz said the reading material was "boy friendly" rather than "chick lit" -- a factor that he believes contributed to the "startling" reading improvement in a relatively short time.

The professor also said he suspects that young boys may under-perform in reading compared to girls because the boys simply aren't interested in the subject of the material they are given.

A drop in the number of male teachers, especially in elementary schools, is one of the factors blamed for boys consistently scoring lower than girls on literacy tests.

Statistics Canada reported in 2003 the percentage of male teachers in Canada had dropped from 41 per cent in 1989 to 35 per cent in 1999, and their numbers are much higher in secondary schools than elementary schools.

In elementary schools, in particular, the decline persists. As of last year in Ontario, for instance, women outnumbered men four to one in the early elementary school grades. The situation is similar in B.C., where the number of male teachers hired for elementary schools has been declining for years.

The Ontario College of Teachers reported that men are retiring from teaching faster than they are entering the profession, threatening to make them a dying breed. The college has called on the Ontario government to sponsor a massive marketing campaign to attract men to the field in the hope of giving valuable role models for little boys.

There has been no similar call in B.C. and no significant drive to recruit male teachers, although teachers of both sexes have been striving in recent years to find new ways to engage boys in reading, recognizing that they don't necessarily want to read the same books as girls.

The study, funded by the federal government, was published in the May issue of the academic journal Sex Roles.[/q]