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 Cindy,
 I did my research project on high school boys and reading, which, of course, 
touched upon boys' reading in general, too. One of the most important points to 
remember with boys and reading is that most boys are labeled non-readers because 
what they do read is not valued by educators. Now this fact does not mean that we 
don't have a serious problem with boys and reading. It simply means that if we are 
to reach boys through reading, we must first examine what boys are interested in 
(not reading, just interests in life-for example, music, hunting, gaming, whatever) 
and just what it is that they already read. I did a survey with junior class boys 
in which I first asked about their everyday interests and then asked about what 
they had read or were reading (all reading materials were considered, from 
instruction manuals to magazines to books). The majority of boys did read 
something, just not what is considered reading material by too many educators. I 
guess what I want to emphasi!
 ze here is that we must meet the boys where they live and acknowledge their 
reading choices as valid if we are to succeed in putting boys and books together on 
a married basis. (Yes, even though I believe we need to value the reading of 
magazines and other reading materials, I do desire the end result to be that we can 
interest boys in book selections, too--not excluding other reading material, but 
including books.) 
 
 There is a growing field of professional literature on boys and reading, as well 
as online resources. Some of the print resources I used in my research project and 
paper were the following: To Be a Boy, To Be a Reader by William G. Brozo; 
Connecting Boys With Books, What Libraries Can Do by Michael Sullivan; "Reading 
Don't Fix No Chevys" by Michael W. Smith and Jeffrey D. Wilhelm; Teenage Boys and 
High School English by Bruce Pirie; and Even Hockey Players Read by David Booth. I 
also used articles from many sources. I feel that it is the responsibility of every 
library media specialist to become familiar with these resources on boys and 
reading in order to effectively deal with the problem of boys drifting away from 
the wonderful world of lifelong reading, not to mention the problem of boys scoring 
lower and lower than girls on reading tests every year. Jon Scieszka has become 
involved with this issue of boys and reading. His Web site, Guys Read at 
guysread.com, is an excel!
 lent source of information on what guys like to read. Scieszka's book Guys Write 
for Guys Read is a collection of stories, poems, drawings, and more by authors boys 
gravitate towards. Another book, Every Man for Himself: Ten Short Stories About 
Being a Guy edited by Nancy Mercado, is a great book for high school boys in 
particular.
 
 I realize that I haven't provided any activities here or programs, but I think it 
is essential that we understand boys and their relationship to reading before we 
can do anything about improving it.
 
 Kathy Reel
 Former English/Writing Teacher
 New Librarian Looking for Job
 Owensboro, KY 
 
 
 
  
 -----Original Message-----
 From: CEB700@AOL.COM
 To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
 Sent: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 8:43 PM
 Subject: Motivating Boys to Read
 
  I'm interested in hearing about any programs/activities that any of you have used 
to motivate boys (middle school age) to read. As a MLS graduate school student, 
I've been investigating boys' lack of interest in reading and wondered if I could 
gather any ideas from you all -- the creative people in the field! Thanks for 
sharing any of the successful things that you have used. 
 
 Cindy Brittain, MLS Graduate Student 
 East Carolina University 
 ceb700@aol.com 
 
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