Week 5-Professional Readings

Week 5
I couldn’t agree more that socio-economic status has the largest factor on a students reading interest and ability. Being at two opposite socio-economic status schools, I am able to directly observe how high economic status differs from low economic status and their effects on tween boys. At the high economic school many boys are consistent, enthusiastic, and high level readers, however at the low socio economic school the boys are at very low reading levels and resist checking out books. There has been a change in the last year, however, the low school has begun to utilize the Accelerated reading program which pushes students to check out appropriate level books. The high economic school has been using AR for a few years, which has encouraged and pushed boys to read. What I find interesting, is now that the boys have to read, in order to reach a certain amount of points, they will take the time to choose a book they want to read, which improves their comprehension and increases their reading level. I think a reading program, like Accelerated Reading, is a great way for reluctant readers to get engaged in reading, but not by forcing them to read certain books. They have the opportunity to read what books they choose as long as it is in their reading range.
In order to “promote” reading and different books to boys, they need to find connections with the material. As observed in the study “Male Call” boys tend to read books with dangerous looking covers, characters that aren’t perfect, and topics they have already heard of; they choose books they can connect with. I think it is important as librarians to display some of these connections, through books talks or visual cues. This seems so basic and obvious, but it is difficult to reach all different readers, at all times. By constantly changing out bulletin boards, posters, book displays and sharing new titles, the more tweens we can reach…even the boys