ENGAGING BOYS WITH
READING.
A QUALITATIVE STUDY EXPLORING TEACHING AND LEARNING
STRATEGIES AND ADDITIONAL CONDITIONS AND CONTEXTS THAT
SUPPORT THE ENGAGEMENT OF YEAR 9 BOYS WITH READING.
LOUISE COPUS- DISSERTATION
2 1 ST J U N E 2 0 1 4
OR…
How to move from this:
To this:
NATIONAL PICTURE
Summer 2013 GCSE English results:
Boys 56.3% A*-C grades (56.9% in 2012)
Girls 71.2% in 2013 (71.5% A*-C in 2012)
(Stubbs, 2013)
A report by the National Literacy Trust, in conjunction with the All
Party Parliamentary Literacy group published a report into boys’
reading on Monday 2nd July 2012. As part of their findings they
revealed that of the 226 schools that they had surveyed, 76%
were concerned about boys’ underachievement in reading.
(All Party Parliamentary Literacy
Group and National Literacy Trust, 2012)
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Which teaching and learning strategies support
Year 9 boys’ engagement with the reading of
texts?
Which additional conditions and contexts
support the engagement of Year 9 boys with
reading?
ENGAGEMENT?
What is
engagement?
LITERATURE REVIEW
GENDER – ISSUES TO FACE
Constructions of
masculinity
Competitive
nature of
hegemonic
masculinity
‘Gender appropriate
activities’
Masculinity vs
femininity
Fear
Perceptions of
reading
LITERATURE REVIEW
POTENTIAL STRATEGIES TO ENGAGE
Effortless achievement
Teacher praise
Relevance
Kinaesthetic tasks
Extended reading /
reading around the subject
Co-operation
Teachers offering and modelling
a range of masculinities
Group talk
Thinking about reading
Independence and choice
METHODOLOGY
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Action Research: McNiff
Small scale, qualitative
One mixed ability year 9 class
Reading SOW
Observe, question and attempt to improve
attitudes to reading.
• Research Methods:
• Research Journal
• Questionnaires
• Semi structured interviews
INITIAL QUESTIONNAIRE
Engagement in English Questionnaire
I am:
male
female
What is your favourite subject?
Why do you like it?
Name three that you don’t find as enjoyable.
Do you think that some subjects can be more ‘boy’ or ‘girl’
subjects?
How much do you enjoy English as a subject? 12345
Do you enjoy English more than Maths?
Is English one of these?
If so which?
Choose three words to describe what English is like as
a subject:
Name three activities that you enjoy in English:
-
Why do you think this?
Would the ‘gender’ of a subject be a factor in how you
engage in it?
How/ Why? / Why not?
INITIAL QUESTIONNAIRE FINDINGS
Favourite subject
Least Favourite activities
Engagement in English
Are subjects gendered?
Favourite activities
Would the ‘gender’ of
a subject affect your
engagement ?
INITIAL INTERVIEW
“I like being able to choose how I do a task. Like I might
prefer to write a paragraph but someone else might like a
mind map or something better. If I choose how I get my
information down then I feel like it is more suited to me.”
“They let me teach my own lesson to
everyone that was pretty awesome!”
“My target grades are quite high and I feel
like I can’t achieve them. I don’t like
languages that much.”
“really express my thoughts and be really creative.”
“I like finding out about things that really happened.”
SOW
TEACHING AND LEARNING
STRATEGIES TO EXPLORE
Key teaching and learning strategies:
• Tasks encouraging independence
• Tasks relating the text to its wider social, historical
and cultural contexts
• Visual, kinaesthetic and ICT tasks
• Talk-based tasks, peer or group, including drama
• Tasks involving intellectual challenge where
students were given little or no initial information
• Wider, independent and extended reading
SOW
ANIMAL FARM
Lesson no. in
unit of work
Lesson activity
Teaching and learning strategies used
1
Free writing: exploring a theme
Independence, relating to context, challenge
2
Reading related books
independently
Group discussion
Independence, reading
4
Visual Character display
5
ICT research lesson
6
‘Mask’ impersonating a character
Visual & kinaesthetic, independence, group
talk
Independence, challenge, wider reading,
relating to context
Kinaesthetic, Drama and talk
7
TV news programme
Independence, talk, drama, kinaesthetic
8
Debate
Independence, talk, reading
9
Presenting to class on an aspect of
the Russian Revolution
Extended independent reading of
novel
Talk, Independence, relating to context
3
10
Talk, group independence
Wider reading, independence
FINDINGS
QUESTIONNAIRE 2
Questionnaire 2
- Asked students to rank activities then explain
choices.
- Looked then at general attitudes to reading and if
they had changed
FINDINGS
QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS – TOP RANKED
ACTIVITIES
FINDINGS – QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS – BOTTOM
RANKED ACTIVITIES
FINDINGS – ANIMAL FARM AS A NOVEL
CHOICE
“The book itself was
enjoyable and captivating
and I have trouble finding
books like that.”
Was Animal Farm an engaging
novel choice?
“I liked the book more than others
studied in school because Animal
Farm is a much more thought
provoking book which requires you
to think about it. It is more important
than the others that are just about
romance or an adventure.”
“It wasn’t like a book where all
the characters fall in love or are
really good friends or anything –
there were some really evil bits
and I thought that was the most
interesting part”.
FINDINGS – ROLE MODELS
“He must have been really clever and it was a really
dangerous thing to do. I like studying this book
because I think he was a really interesting person.”
FINDINGS INDEPENDENCE
“Boys are very engaged by finding
unusual or obscure methods of control to
debate. Independent choice here works
very well as an engaging strategy, boys
are more engaged as they are able to
choose their own area.”
“Because I got to
choose my own
ideas and then
research them, I felt
like they really were
my ideas and I liked
them a lot better.”
“I enjoy presenting my
ideas and I feel that I
enjoy partaking in
activities I have
personally planned /
researched, as I have
more to say about them
because I have chosen
them”.
“My favourite tasks allowed me to think
about my opinions and interpretations
of the books and to do this in a way
that I chose, that was important to
me.”
FINDINGS –
RELATING TO HISTORICAL, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL
CONTEXTS OR TO STUDENTS’ OWN EXPERIENCE
“The thing about reading is, it’s all just
made up. You can’t use it for anything.
It’s pointless.”
“The background to Animal Farm is
“The background of Animal Farm is really engaging because it all really
so interesting because it all really
happened. You can really see where
happened – it’s not just some book the links to the Russian Revolution are
that’s made up, it’s all real and that and it is so interesting.”
makes it much more engaging for
me.”
“Then we found out the words [given in
this task, e.g. ‘Freedom’] were themes
“I thought it was really engaging
from Animal Farm and it was really
because George Orwell has really
interesting because when we saw
based it on stuff that really
those themes in the book we already
happened”.
knew about them in a way because
we had already explored them on our
own.”
FINDINGS –
KINAESTHETIC, VISUAL AND DRAMA ACTIVITIES
“My least favourite activities were the
practical ones like the mask and the
presentation as I am not fond of
speaking in front of the class.”
“My favourite activities were engaging
because they were creative and
practical and fun! And I could learn at
the same time.”
“I put character display at the
top because it was creative
and also useful to refer back
to in later lessons. I could see
the point in it.”
“I felt really confident about saying
stuff as well because I had my Boxer
mask on and so did everyone and we
were just the animals. I don’t think I’d
have been as engaged without the
mask because I would have been
embarrassed.”
FINDINGS –
TALK / GROUP WORK
“Boys are particularly engaged in
discussion about masculinity and
reading. As soon as they were made
aware of the existence of the idea that
it is not masculine to read, they were
almost fighting against it. Deep
discussion on why it is masculine to
read is occurring with reference to a
range of authors and texts.”
“I think it can be quite a noisy
thing when you are really
engaged because it’s often
when you are talking about it
and sharing your ideas with the
class or your group.”
“I saw lots of people change
their opinions actually and I think
that is a real sign of engaging
because they were clearly
thinking very deeply about what
people were saying.”
“In discussion, people interpret the
ideas in the books in different ways and
everyone can share these and
develop these and maybe change
their own opinions.”
FINDINGS –
CHALLENGE
“Writing was also really challenging
because you weren’t given that much
information but you really thought that
you could succeed at it.”
“ You have to work at it as well, it isn’t
easy but you feel really satisfied once
you understood it, it was engaging
because you had to work at it and it
was a challenge.”
“If you researched it and knew what
you were talking about you could win.”
FINDINGS –
INDEPENDENT AND EXTENDED READING
“ I find reading very enjoyable as I
don’t have to keep stopping to do a
different activity, I can really get into
it.”
“Some students seem to really
appreciate the reading, they were
totally engaged and when I tried to
stop them, they didn’t hear me.”
FINDINGS –
MYSTERY
“It’s like finding out this really big secret
and it makes you feel really interested
and clever because you know the
secret about it.”
“It was like this huge web and we had
to work out all our own ideas.”
LIMITATIONS
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Small scale!
Class teacher – tension
Group dynamic in interview
‘Fun’ activities – higher ranking
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