LISTEN TO BOYS WHO STRUGGLE WITH READING:
SELF-PERCEPTIONS AND PREFERRED READING
MATERIALS
Xiaoming Liu and Elizabeth Dicembre
Miranda Snowden
Purpose
ata from the 2008 National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP) indicate that female
students continued to have higher average reading
scores than male students at all three ages: nine,
thirteen, and seventeen (National Center for
Education Statistics, 2010). A large amount of
research has been done to examine issues that
may have contributed to this achievement gap:
brain differences between males and females,
presence or absence of gender-specific role
models provided by adult readers, and
matches/mismatches between students‘ reading
preferences and what is available at school (e.g.,
Millard, 1997; Odean, 1998; Worthy, Moorman
& Turner, 1999; Zambo & Brozo, 2009). Other
research has focused on instructional strategies to
help struggling readers, both male and female. To
name a few: direct/explicit teaching of reading
skills and strategies (Rupley, Blair, & Nichols,
2009), analyzing text features to determine
importance in nonfiction texts (Bluestein, 2010),
and an engagement model of classroom practice
(Guthrie & Davis, 2003). However, there are
few studies that closely investigate how boy
struggling readers in particular view themselves
as readers, what they are interested in reading,
and what are used by their teachers to teach
reading. We conducted this study based on the
belief that if we understand how struggling
readers perceive themselves and what they like to
read, we will be able to provide more effective
ways to motivate them. We further believe that
knowing the matches/mismatches between their
reading preferences and what are used to teach
reading in their classrooms will provide us with
clearer directions about how to help them. We
sought answers to the following research
questions by conducting one-on-one interviews
with the boy students who attended a university
reading clinic: (a) How do boy struggling readers
perceive themselves as readers? (b) What are
their reading interests? and (c) What do they like
to read vs. what are used by their teachers to
teach reading? Even though this study focuses on
boy students, our ultimate goal is to help all
children succeed in reading.
Theoretical Perspective
The work on motivation and struggling
readers guided our study. A traditional view of
struggling readers is that they lack cognitive
competencies such as fluency, comprehension
and word recognition skills. Many researchers,
however, urge us to look beyond cognitive
Xiaoming Liu is an Assistant Professor in
the Department of Elementary Education
at Towson University. Her research
interests include: authentic literacy
assessment, children’s literature, and
young children’s biliteracy
development. She is particularly
interested in working with children of
diverse linguistic and cultural
backgrounds and struggling readers.
Elizabeth Dicembre directs the Reading
Clinic and teaches in the Master of
Education in Reading Program at
Towson University. Her research
interests include reading interventions
and individualized instruction. She is
particularly interested in working with
struggling readers and children in
impoverished W&&