Thursday, June 19, 2008

Reading and Teachers

Kudos to all the readers during last Wednesday's class!

It was also interesting and refreshing to have our first male reader last Wednesday. Andrew's reading made me reflect on different styles or ways that male teachers and female teachers approach reading. Interestingly, I found an article about how struggling male readers respond better to female teachers. According to the article, boys who are identified as struggling readers develop higher positive perception as readers when working with female educators. The article which was published almost a year ago was actually based on a study of 175 third- and fourth -grade boys who went on a 10-week reading intervention. Based on the result of the study, researchers concluded that the decline in the number of male teachers in schools was not the reason why boys underachieve in reading considering that they worked really well with female teachers. It did not really elaborate on possible reasons but I think this is something that I can research further on.

The title of the article is "Struggling Male Readers Respond Better To Female Teachers" www.sciencedaily.com.

5 comments:

Rosalind The Second said...

Violeta,
I found that article very informative. I had never heard that boys who struggle with reading respond better to female teachers. When you think about it, mothers are the first ones to read to their children. Not to say that fathers don't, but the moms proably do it more consistently. Thanks for that article.

Rosalind

Dr. Luongo said...

Very interesting, Violeta!

Gender seems to play a silent (or not so silent) role in so many facets of education.

Thanks for posting!

Rosalind The Second said...

Violeta, I know you are interested in teaching the younger grades.. try Thinkfinity.org. It has lots of great ideas.
Rosalind

Violeta said...

Thanks Rosalind! I will definitely check that site.

Arleen said...

I also feel that there should be more male teachers for the primary grades. Traditionally, women always taught elementary school. I think it is refreshing for a man to read to younger readers. Children need both men and women role models in the classroom.