My name is Jennifer Lynch - Farrell. I am a teacher for the past fifteen (15) years.I spent the early years of my teaching career in the Infant Department and I've always wondered how a child emerges into reading. At First Year, the pupils are exposed to a reading readiness programme, they are taught sight words and interest words. These words are brought together and they read sentences.If the classroom has a good library, pupils show interest in the books.The pupils read but real reading begins in Second Year, as the pupils are exposed to the right learning environment.
Some children will struggle in reading because of many factors, for example the home ( a low socio-economic background).However, from my experience in doing The Education Research Project, I have discovered that a Gender Reading Gap does exist. From a motivational reading chart in my Second Year Class, it was obvious that the girls were showing greater interest in reading than the boys and were reading more of the Jolly Phonics books.
From my research, I've found that the absence of the males to model reading, in the school and at home can prevent boys from having this natural urge to read.They see reading as a feminine activity.As a Reading Specialist,I am happy that I would be equipped with the knowledge to integrate educational technologies into instruction, to motivate the boys to read.I hope this can be done in addition to male modeling of reading.
Some children will struggle in reading because of many factors, for example the home ( a low socio-economic background).However, from my experience in doing The Education Research Project, I have discovered that a Gender Reading Gap does exist. From a motivational reading chart in my Second Year Class, it was obvious that the girls were showing greater interest in reading than the boys and were reading more of the Jolly Phonics books.
From my research, I've found that the absence of the males to model reading, in the school and at home can prevent boys from having this natural urge to read.They see reading as a feminine activity.As a Reading Specialist,I am happy that I would be equipped with the knowledge to integrate educational technologies into instruction, to motivate the boys to read.I hope this can be done in addition to male modeling of reading.
We all share that need to make a difference that I can only expect the best from this group of reading specialists. May all our expectations yield the expected results. But it starts in the minds and hearts of teachers. That I fear will be the real challenge.
ReplyDeleteWe have to understand the boys and girls that we teach. They do not have the same interests. Therefore, our teaching strategies must cater for their needs. There is evidence to suggest that boys are becoming literate in many ways through out of school activities (Blair &Stanford, 2004). According to Coles and Hall, (2001) girls are not engaging in these same activities. They further state that if we were to broaden the definition of school literacy, boys’ out of school literacy practices that are not normally valued in schools would not only change how statistics report boys' literacy acts, but would increase their literacy skills by broadening their own definitions of literacy. Then boys would be motivated to succeed and improve.
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ReplyDeleteHey Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteI have had the pleasure of working in both types of same sex schools and co-ed. schools. Unforunately, I regret that I did not analyse my experiences as critically as I should have as I now believe that I could have made some great research observations. Research has pointed out that there are gender issues that influence literacy. Taking the research into consideration and our pilot project of same sex schools I believe that changes to the curriculum and methodology should be contemplated by teachers of these various schools. As expressed by Michael Sadowski in his article ‘The Boy Crisis’ Volume 26, No.4. of the Harvard Education Letter, each school or district may have different issues and may need to be examined on a smaller scale for greater effect. However, as the article also suggests there are other factors that will also need to be considered.
Advocates of single-sex education do not believe that all girls learn one way and all boys learn another way. On the contrary, they cherish and celebrate the diversity among girls and among boys. They understand that some boys would rather read a book than play football and that some girls would rather play football rather than play with Barbies. Educators who understand these differences can inspire every child to learn to the best of her or his ability. Conversely, educators and parents are recognizing that all too often, coeducational settings actually reinforce gender stereotypes via the process that researchers call "gender intensification." Boys at coed schools will tell you "poetry is for girls." Girls at coed schools will tell you that computer science is for boys.
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