• Parents read to boys for shorter periods of time than they read to girls.
• Teen girls read almost twice as much as boys on a per-hour basis.
• Some 37% of male college freshmen, and only 23% of female college freshmen, say they spend no time reading for pleasure.
• More boys than girls struggle with reading and writing.
• The average 11th-grade American boy writes at the same level as the average eighth-grade girl.
• Boys start school with a considerable verbal and psycho-social developmental lag (up to 18 months), behind girls. They often do not catch up until into their late teens—if then.
• The majority of reluctant readers are boys.
• While 70% of children learn to read with no special support, most of the rest—those with problems—are male, non-white, and economically deprived.
• Boys get most of the D’s and F’s in school grades.
• Adolescent males are significantly more likely than adolescent females to be left back a grade.
• Boys have a harder time finding books on their own.
• Adolescent girls outscore adolescent boys in reading and writing—the gender gap being equivalent to a year and a half of school. In other words, the average high school freshman girl is reading as well as the average high school junior boy.
• Boys are four times more likely than girls to be in learning disability programs.
• The gender gap in literacy is worldwide. Even in Finland, which boasts the top-ranked students in literacy, girls scored much higher than boys.
• Adolescent males drop out of high school at four times the rate of adolescent females (this includes females who drop out to have babies).
• Boys have more attitude and are less active in the school community. Males are more likely to view schooling in general (and specifically literacy) as artificial, even unmanly.
• Ninety percent of adolescent discipline problems in schools involve males, as do most expulsions and suspensions.
• Boys are the primary victims of violence in schools, and comprise the majority of dead, injured, mentally ill, and substance-abusing adolescents.
• The majority of salutatorians and valedictorians now are female. Adolescent females also dominate school clubs, yearbooks, and student government.
• Boys are four times more likely to be referred to a school psychologist.

There’s a direct link between comfort with reading and attitude. “Once they begin to fall behind, they act out because they are bored or disengaged, and a really difficult downward spiral results. Poor reading among boys leads to antisocial behavior. Low literacy is related to crime, poverty, and unemployment.”

“Given that a growing number of boys lack attentive males in their home life, it’s unfortunate that only twenty-four percent of teachers in the U.S. are male. In elementary school, it’s only seventeen percent. “Of all the theories offered to explain why boys trail girls in academics, the lack of male role models tends to lead the pack,” concluded a series of articles in The Globe and Mail.

(All sources for these statistics are footnoted in Jump-Starting Boys: Help Your Reluctant Reader Find Success in School and Life.)