Disadvantaged Boys and Ebooks

I've always felt that anything that attracts kids to reading it a good thing. From getting them to read books about movies that they have seen, to using their own interests and experiences, and technology. I remember in many of my middle school classes that there were many more girls carrying books to read for themselves than boys. And the study reported here notes that same that: "twice as many boys as girls look at or read online stories for longer than they read traditional books (24 per cent compared to 12 per cent)." It also reminds me about the studies concerning video gaming, that more boys were attracted to those than girls (although there was controversy concerning the types of games created and who they appealed to). One thing that was found out from gaming was that even boys at the time were showing increased communication activity as they talked, wrote, and shared about how to play the game with others. Here is another tech experience that seems to be attracting more boys than girls, but is getting them to read, and is attracting a sub-group that has had poor performance. One possible for success could be the tech attractiveness, but it could also have other elements that could help. The ability of the ebook to adjust the text size alone can help many students just by making the content easier to read. We know that about 20% of elementary students have a print disability, and and one issue that students perform poorly in school is a lack of reading skills and experience, so if this helps, then lets try to get more such devices into all students hands and show them the ways that they can personalize their books for their reading.

Disadvantaged boys learn to pick up an ebook

New technology is unlocking the key to the biggest problem that has been bedevilling the education world for years – the poor performance of white working –class boys in reading. A study reveals that touch-screen technology has switched on to reading three- to five-year-old boys and, more generally, children from disadvantaged homes. 12/1/2014 The Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/disadvantaged-boys-learn-to-pick-up-an-ebook-9894498.html

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