Storybookers

7 Proven Ways To Get Boys To Love Reading

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How many time have you thrown your hands up and said, “I give up”?    

For many people, those who care about positive child development, giving up isn’t an option.  

Think about how your life would be if you had no access to the written word.  This is a reality for many people. For some it’s a physiological issue other it’s psychological.  There are also those who by not understanding the importance of reading never bother to develop the skill sufficiently.  Until it’s too late.

So what does it take to get a young man to put down his Playstaion and pick up a book?   There will be those who say that maybe it’s best not to buy one in the first place.  But that isn’t always as easy as it sounds.  Some parents bribe their kids with games times as a trade off against time spent reading books.  The danger of this is that reading then becomes the opposite of things that are fun.  That’ll set the ‘Reading for Pleasure movement’ back a bit.

So what do you do?  I know teachers, parents and carers who have come up with some clever little ways of getting boys to see reading as a positive force in their lives.  Whether it’s as a pleasurable distraction or as a way to gather a wealth of useful information that they can use to enhance their lives.    These are some of the insights I’ve gathered.  I’ve also thrown in a few that have worked for me over the years.

So here they are, in no particular order.

7 Tips for getting boys into reading:

1.   Tell them a story

If it’s a short story, tell  it to them.  And I mean tell them rather than read.  There are a number of reasons why I say this but I’ll expand on that another time.  Telling a child a  story might sound obvious to some but there are people who are little reluctant.  People often think that if you tell a child a story they won’t read it for themselves.  But you wouldn’t think that if you knew how much the book sales of the Hunger Games went up after movies came out. 

2. Tell them about a story

If it’s a long story, tell them about the story.  Be a kind of trailer and get them excited about finding out more.  Ok, this might take a bit of practice.  But watch TV and movies trailers and have some fun with it.

3. Let them see you reading books.  

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Posted 505 weeks ago

About Me


Why 'Reading for Joy' Didn't work on Boys

Posted by Norman Bailey on Wednesday, May 7, 2014 Under: Libraries

So does putting reading in the 'for pleasure' category get boys into reading?



I've never been a big fan of the 'Reading For Joy' movement.   So I was really pleased when figure published this week showed that the 'Reading for Pleasure' drive is beginning to bear fruit.  When I heard this my first reaction was, Reading for pleasure' when did that happen.  The last I heard it was called 'Reading of Joy'.  I'm sure there more to this than changing a word but does this have something to do with it's success.


What's in a name


So does the name change have something to do with literacy drive's success?  Could be, and I'll tell you why.  I've always found the 'for joy' labelling a little off-putting. And I feel that many boys, the hardest group to reach when it comes to reading, may feel the same.


I doubt that many boys outside of the Famous Five novels would ever dream of using the word 'Joy'.  I was told off the other day by a 10 year old pupil of mine because I said he had a 'nice' singing voice.  "Nice! That something you'd called an old lady", he said,  "Can't you call it radical'.   Now we don't have to get all trendy vicar about it and call it radical reading.  But I feel a rethink in our approach to getting reluctant boys into reading is worth serious consideration.


Even the 'for pleasure' approach has a serious downside.  I know some people may disagree with me on this but many boys still see reading as boring and uncool.   And I'm not sure that just telling them it's a pleasurable experience will change that. 


Kids take things pretty literally.  By putting books down as pleasure it's now competing with all the other things that a child associates with enjoyment and having fun.  For a boy this box could also be filled with:

  • Football
  • Sweet and Ice cream
  • Cutting worms in half 
  • Playstation
  • Water guns
  • Tormenting girls
  • Tormenting adults


In this company sitting quietly and struggling to keep you concentration focussed while you make it through the latest kiddie potboiler might not be as appealing.  I'm sure there are adults who would also put some of the things on the list ahead of reading a book as a joyful recreational pursuit.  So why do we think children, especially boys, are any different?




Of course we should be encouraging boys to read. But is insisting that they jump for joy at the prospect of delving into the latest kiddies potboiler the only answer?  This approach barely works on girls or adults.   So is there something else we should be doing?


As I fall into the grown-up boy category, I'd like to offer up a few reasons why this latest trend hasn't yielded the desired results.  I'd also like to put forward a few suggestions as to how you can get the little man in your life excited about what lies beneath the standard book jacket.


First thing I want to say is 'I love books'.  Hardly a day goes by without me reading something.   I will visit a library  at least 4 times a week and spend considerable time there reading and researching.   I also have a British Library readers cards.  And, to my wife's consternation, I own a mountain of books.  AsI looks up from my screen I can see my copy of The Chambers 1970 Yearbook, which I've had since that year and refuse to give up.   Also on the bookshelf is: the full Stanislasky series, African folklore,  the Audacity of Hope, Bruce Lee's Toa of Jeet Kune do,  Library of World Poetry and I could go on.   But I do not 'Read for joy in the sense that it's being talked about.


Take a look at the list of books again.  Notice anything?  No fiction.  This is not to say that I don't read fiction.   It's just that they are not my biggest draw.  When it comes to reading fiction I have to say that I prefer to read stage and screenplay to novels. And I don't think that I'm alone in saying that I prefer to be told stories rather than read them.  Be it films, theatre, TV or good old traditional oral storytelling.


The main reason I read for knowledge.  I read to satisfy my curiosity for things.  


Even when I'm reading fiction I'm searching for Information.  An insight into the world or the head of the author.   I seldom read for entertainment purposes.  For the joy of it.  This is not to say I don't get any joy from reading.  I do.   I get immense pleasure from it. But in the found that I now know something I didn't know before. But this is different to reading for joy. Understanding the difference could mean the difference between getting boys into reading and putting them off for life.





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