Written by Paul Kortepeter

When my youngest son was nine years old, his teacher gave me a call to express her concern about a particularly gory illustration from a story he was writing for a class assignment. I don’t recall the offending passage apart from “the bloody swords clashed,” but I do remember the picture being rife with lopped-off heads, severed arms, and a victorious knight raising his sword, gleaming with red ink. What my son saw as heroic writing, his teacher saw as the possible sign of a mental disorder. My wife and I had the obligatory conversation with the youngster, and he assured us that all the dismembered knights were bad guys.

The plain fact is that boys differ from girls, not only in biology, but also in how they respond to reading and writing. Of course, all the usual caveats apply. Many boys love to read and write. Some girls don’t. Many girls love tales of sports and battles. Some boys don’t. However, in general, a gap between the genders persists. According to the National Literacy Trust’s 2022 study of young people aged eight to 18, 54.9% of girls read for pleasure compared to 45.6% of boys—a 9.3 percentage-point gap. There’s also a strong correlation between reading and success in writing. More than two in five girls (44%) write for pleasure versus one in three boys (33%)—an 11-point gap. Regular reading reduces the cognitive load of writing by making the use of language more intuitive. Reading helps children absorb grammar, syntax, and style with less effort than writing instruction alone. 

Don’t get me wrong—the number of kids who enjoy reading and writing across the board in the United States today is appallingly low. But what explains the difference between how girls and boys take to literary pursuits? 

In the 19th century, among educated classes, both sexes seem to have enjoyed reading and writing with similar enthusiasm. Although we lack studies on the scale of today’s, we can see historical publishers catering to boys’ tastes in adventure novels by authors such as G.A. Henty, Robert Louis Stevenson, Horatio Alger, and Howard Pyle. Many boys also preferred nonfiction over fiction, reflected in travelogues and biographies as well as books on history and nature. Nowadays, publishers lean heavily toward girls’ tastes, especially in fiction. The Guardian in 2016 noted that 78% of the U.S. publishing workforce was female, almost certainly shaping content priorities. It seems the industry has largely given up on boys. In the past century-and-a-half, reading was a primary source of entertainment for both sexes. Today, it competes with video games, social media, and a host of after-school activities. Historically, reading was a prestigious activity for boys, tied to ideals of intellectual and moral growth. Today, boys face pressure to favor sports and gaming over reading.

So how can we reverse these trends, especially for our boys? First of all, don’t stop reading aloud to them once they learn to read independently. Children of all ages still enjoy listening to fluent and confident reading, as attested by the burgeoning market in audio books. Schools should never give up on reading aloud, even in high school. Secondly, give boys action-oriented fiction and nonfiction, and don’t be dismayed if their first love is quality comic books. My boys cut their teeth on Asterix and The Adventures of Tin Tin before moving on to the Hatchet series, The Chronicles of Narnia, Percy Jackson, The Hobbit, and Tom Sawyer. They also reveled in nonfiction about pirates, dinosaurs, space travel, and lacrosse.

When it comes to writing, offer prompts inspired by adventure, science fact, and science fiction: What thoughts raced through the hero’s mind as he found himself surrounded by enemy knights? What might a thief from another planet want to steal from Earth? What sort of traps did the treasure hunter encounter as he sought to enter the ancient, undiscovered temple? What strategy did the rookie quarterback use against a ferocious defensive line? Support your boys' enthusiasms!

Boys often excel in goal-oriented tasks and may feel less confident with open-ended writing assignments. Clear guidelines and real-world purpose (like persuasion, exposition, and staging a play) increase engagement. Before writing, encourage boys to work out the problems of their composition using story boards, diagrams, or maps. 

Finally, give boys a chance to move around during and after a sedentary session of writing. Traditional schools are often better suited to girls, who tend to sit still longer and enjoy playing with words. By and large, words are abstractions, and most girls are more quickly at home in a world of language. Action, however, is more often the domain of boys. The school day needs balance between words and action. For some boys, shorter writing tasks paired with physical exertion between seated activities can help. At times, let them dictate ideas and sentences to you as the scribe, or encourage them to include action and illustrations in their writing. Pacing back and forth in a room is one way I pre-write to keep my mind and body active simultaneously. 

There’s every reason to believe boys and girls can rediscover an equal passion for reading and writing. I’m excited by the prospect of a new generation of boys embracing writing as a bold, masculine pursuit. Let the bloody swords clash!