October 8, 2025 • 16 mins
Boys are falling behind in reading — and the consequences are staggering. In this episode, we share an excerpt from Your Kid’s Next Read podcast with Allison Tait, Megan Daley, Matt Stanton and Dr Justin Coulson unpacking the crisis in boys’ literacy. From screen addiction to motivation, we explore why reading has lost its spark for boys — and how parents can bring stories back to life at home. You can listen to the full conversation here: Boys and Reading.
KEY POINTS:
- Reading rates are plummeting across the board — but boys are struggling most.
- The literacy gap between boys and girls now equals a full academic year by Year 9.
- Why screens are hijacking boys’ brains — and how to reset attention spans.
- The 3 ingredients that make kids want to read: autonomy, competence, and connection.
- Why dads matter most — boys become readers when they see men reading.
- The power of reading with your kids, not just telling them to read.
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
“For boys to love reading, they’ve got to see men who love reading.” — Dr Justin Coulson
RESOURCES MENTIONED:
- Your Kid’s Next Read podcast with Allison Tait & Megan Daley
- Raising Readers by Megan Daley
- Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS:
- Model reading — let your kids catch you with a book.
- Choose connection over correction — read with them, not at them.
- Follow their interests — comics, sports magazines, or game guides still count.
- Build confidence — help your child feel capable with age-appropriate reads.
- Make it social — talk about stories, characters, and favourite moments.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, this is the Happy Family's podcast. Today on the
pod something a little bit different. Recently, I was invited
onto the Your Kids Next Read podcast with Alison Tate
and Meghan Daily for a discussion around how we can
get our boys reading more instead of having their heads
stuck in screens. As the name suggests, Your Kid's Next
(00:26):
Read is all about books and reading for children of
all ages. Allison Tate is a children's author, writer and speaker.
She's written a number of books for kids, including adventure
series The Map Maker Chronicles and Maven and Reeve. Meghan
Daly is a teacher, librarian, author and children's literacy educator.
Meghan's been awarded the Australian Teacher Librarian of the Year
(00:46):
and the Queensland Teacher Librarian of the Year, as well
as authoring the best selling book Raising Readers and I
was also joined on this episode by children's author Matt Stanton.
You would know him, I would imagine from the Funny
Kids books, the Board series as well as the books
that Drive Kids Crazy. We'll dive into that discussion next
stay with us. Hello, Welcome to the Happy Families podcast
(01:10):
Real Parenting Solutions, every single day on Australia's most downloaded
parenting podcast. This is doctor Justin Coulson. Today on the pod,
we're replaying an excerpt from the Your Kids Next Read
podcast with Alison Tate and Megan Daily as well as
Matt Stanton. I was a guest on the podcast episode
discussing how we can get our boys reading and addressing
(01:30):
some of the alarming statistics around boys and literacy. We
started off by discussing some of those stats and fleshed
out just what we need to do as parents to
get and keep our boys reading. Hope you enjoyed discussion
and check the show notes for the link to the
full episode.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
First of all, I think it's important to make it
clear that reading has declined across the board. Meaghan and
I talk about kids and reading all the time, and
I think the discussion about boys and reading has been
going on and flaring up since I had my first
son twenty one years ago. Would you agree with that,
Megan Daily?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Absolutely. Our longitudinal studies in Australia, UK and the US
all demonstrate that overall reading rates have declined and that
isn't just a boys in reading issue, even though that's
often where the conversation does flare up. The debate about
boys and reading has been going on for decades. Boys
on average are more likely than girls to read less frequently,
(02:31):
read less widely, and disengage earlier from reading for pleasure.
This has been documented in literacy testing results, publishing trends,
the media, and teacher observations. But it's also important to
recognize that not all boys fit into this pattern and
not all girls escape it.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
And I think, you know, widely reported recent stats from
the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that, you know, for
gen Z, so you know, I guess our fives and
sixes are probably are they at the bottom end of
that quat sure where those lines are. But ten percent
of boys are participating in reading thirteen two point two
percent of girls. So we're not exactly like leaving in
(03:10):
bounds there either. But I think what we're seeing this
time around and this year, it feels to me like
there's an urgency around the data that we haven't seen before.
And I'm wondering, is it different now or does it
just feel different like justin Perhaps you could give us
some thoughts as to why it feels so much more
urgent at present.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, I'm a data guy. I've got a pH d
in psychology, and all I do is look at numbers
and then figure out what that means in real life.
So we've already cover to a few of them. But
what I'm interested in is picture of farm gate or
even front door of your house. At the hinge point
when the door moves, there's not a lot of movement,
but down the road, like the downstream effects all the
(03:54):
way at the other end of the door or the
other end of the farm gate, a little movement near
the hinge to enormous movement down the other end. So
you're sharing stats about primary school, but let's extrapolate that.
Let's build that out and have a look at the
progression into high school. If you have a look at
and I'll only share two quick stats because we really
need to talk about practical things more than the numbers.
(04:14):
But if you have a look at year nine PISA results.
OKAYPIS is the Program for International Student Assessment. Girls are
outpacing the boys by thirty eight points on reading scores.
It puts that is the equivalent thirty eight points is
meaningless without context. That's the equivalent of one full academic
year ahead of the boys. And if we have a
look at the twenty twenty four Naplan results three and
(04:36):
four year seven girls, that's seventy three percent or seventy
five percent. Technically, seventy three percent is what the results
showed were strong or exceeding expectations in writing, but it
was only a smidge and over half of the boys
who achieved the same. The biggest concern for me is
by year nine and eighth boys, about about twelve percent
of boys are functionally illiterate. It's not an intelligence issue.
Is this is the downstream effects of boys not reading
(04:59):
in kin garden, first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade,
that by the time they're big enough to have their
own screen, laptop, iPad device, whatever it is, they don't
have any interest in reading at all. And why would
they because the cheap hit of dope mean that they
get from a twelve second TikTok is stimulating in a
(05:20):
way that I mean, it's hollow, it's shallow. It will
not give you the same sense of engagement purpose meaning satisfaction.
It won't even cover your boredom the same way. But
it's doing the job. The neural architecture of our boys
has been hijacked on our girls been hijacked by the
best brains on the planet, and that's where the battle
(05:43):
is being won, you.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Know, I mean, this is obviously a discussion we can't
have without bringing up the role of screens and social
media into lives of our kids and our boys today.
And justin your review of that Netflix series Adolescent's got
huge traction around this, like there was so much discussion.
But how do we, like, I mean, it's one thing
to talk about it, It's one thing to kind of
have that sort of like massive uptake of interest around
(06:07):
the around that particular series, etc. But how do we
encourage them to put that stuff down and pick up
a book instead? Like I find with boys, you've got
to give them a reason. What reason are we giving them?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
So there's this thing called I mean everyone's heard of it,
but in the nine and seventies it didn't even exist,
This thing called intrinsic motivation. While it existed, but it
hadn't been studied. And intrinsic motivation means that you do
something for the love of it. If we have a
look at what drives a lot of people say, how
do I motivate somebody or how motivated are they? And
it's the wrong question. Alfie Khen, who wrote book called
(06:39):
Punish Bury Awards, says, instead of asking how motivated is someone,
ask how is someone motivated? And there's these different forms
of motivation. So everyone knows external motivation and intrinsic motivation,
but there's a bunch of others in the middle. Fundamentally,
if we want our kids to have those deeper forms
of motivation, we need to put them in environments that
are what psychology researchers call need satisfying environments. So I
(07:05):
need satisfying environment is one where a I feel like
I have a sense of choice or if not choice,
like for example, driving on the left hand side of
the road in Australia, you don't have any choice, but
we do it willingly because we do it volitionally. We
do it choicefully because we get that it makes sense
to drive on the left. It would be chaotic, it
would be traumatic if we drove wherever we wanted. So
(07:25):
we drive on the left because it makes sense. So
that sense of autonomy or choice isn't I get to
have carte blanche and do whatever I want? It's oh yeah,
I see value in this activity, identify it's worth as
an activity for me to do so, therefore I choicefully
step into it. Reading has to feel choiceful. That's the
first key ingredient for a need satisfying environment. The second
(07:46):
thing is that reading, or any activity you want to
have those deeper forms of motivation, it has to feel
like it's something that I can be competent in, so
that I can be masterful ad And unfortunately the stats
show really clearly bit too many others, too many of
our boys do not feel masterful when they pick up
a book. They don't feel competent. They actually feel incapable.
It doesn't make any sense. It's not working for And
(08:07):
the third thing is what we call relatedness or a
sense of mutual and reciprocal I feel like I belong here.
And while in interpersonal context that's easy like you, Allison
and me and Matt and Megan, we all get to
sit together and feel like we're in this connected conversation.
But a book does the same thing. The books that
(08:28):
our children pick up, if they are willing to engage
in it in a relational way, the book talks to them,
the book helps them to feel things. But if they
don't feel competent, if they feel like they're being forced,
or if they feel like the book isn't speaking to them,
they won't read it. Therefore, And I know this is
kind of a technical answer, but our job is to
(08:49):
help them to feel like they get that it matters
and they want to do it because they feel like
they can do it at a reasonable level and it
speaks to them. My number one salution is fine books
that they want to read, like if you've got a
kid that if you've got a kid that loves rugby league,
go and buy Rugby League Weekly. I don't even know
if that exists, by the way, I'm making it up.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
No, it does, and we talk about it all the time.
We are constantly saying like, if they want to read
about rugby, then well let's just go hard down the
rugby road for sure.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, yeah, totally. On The Happy Family's Podcast today, a
discussion about boys and reading, taken from the Your Kid's
Next Read podcast. Back with more right after the break,
stay with us.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
So, Matt, I'm just going to come back to you
for a minute here with this one because there's a
few things I want to unpack here. So there was
the first thing I wanted to say was when we
talk about choiceness and we talk about relating and stuff,
you mentioned that when you do your school visits, you're
trying to make it look like you're not trying to
turn these kids into bookworms. Is that, like, what are
(09:54):
you seeing as some of the biggest barriers to reading
for boys? Is it that peer pressure thing? Because we
went to a literary long reach last week and we
were talking in the green room afterwards, and one of
the authors was saying that he had, you know, hit
us the group, you know, like, you know what, why
does everyone love reading? And blah blah blah, and a
couple of kids had said, you know, it's these it's
(10:15):
that and this this. This boy put his hand up
and he's like, yeah, no, it's for nerds, it's for deeps.
So there is that certain sense of boys not seeing
themselves as readers. Are you seeing that as well?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
I think we we have a couple of interesting things
going on where the role that technology is playing in these.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Kids' lives and I'm a dad in my kids lives.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
Is is taking up some of that space that kind
of I go, I go to be alone in space.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
So the space that when I was a kid it
was reading, reading was there.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
I'll go and do something on my bed for a while,
I'll fill in space. We've never filled that spot with
tech and and so that often means that the idea,
especially for a kid who already spends a decent amount
of time isolating with a device, to then suggest that
they take a book and go and isolate. That's just
(11:12):
not appealing at all. And what I'm seeing and thinking
a lot about is how kids are looking for connection
and the fact that books and reading need to kind
of stay anchored and connected in that space. So that's
why I spend a lot of time talking about parents
reading to kids and how important that is, because we
(11:37):
need to create these positive moments of connection around books
that are relational, and then we need to look for opportunities,
especially with boys, to.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Connect them. And that's where I think it's around stories.
That's why I try to talk about stories often more
than books, because we all love stories. Stories are innately human,
and we love sharing and them kids all kids love
hearing and sharing stories. So what I'm trying to do
in the way that I speak to kids in schools.
Is not say you know, take this book and go
(12:11):
and read it on your own by yourself. I'm trying
to say, there are these amazing stories in here you
need to connect in like, come and see what you
can find.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Okay, So justin I'm interested in your idea, your thoughts
on the idea of boys not seeing themselves as readers,
which is something that has come out in the discourse.
You know that there's this idea that reading. They don't
see a role for themselves in the reading culture because
they think it's for girls, or it can be you know,
quite female dominated. And I will say right now that
I would say ninety eight percent of the members of
(12:42):
the Your Kids Next Read community are female. So there's
a lot of you know, a lot of women in
there trying to encourage reading in kids and things like that.
So do you think that's do you think that's is
that a thing? Is that something that the boys are
taking on board that there's a lot of women doing this,
But it's not for me.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
One of the most fascinating findings as I've looked in
the fields of anthropology, sociology, psychology, and philosophy is a
sense of agreement across cultures and through history that masculinity
is learned, masculinity is constructed. In other words, you learn
masculinity as a boy by watching the men around you.
(13:24):
So how many of the boys in the classes that
you guys are talking to, in the grade levels that
you guys are talking to. How many of those boys
go home and see their dad sitting on the couch
with a book in his hand. How many of them
are having men model searching through pages, looking for a
(13:46):
quote or finding that incredible story that they want to read.
How many of these kids, male or female, they've got parents.
I mean, this is all about getting kids reading right.
How many have parents who sit down and say, hey,
let me read to you. I'm going to read to
you every night. One thing that really is an obstacle,
especially around confidence, is some kids just they won't get
(14:08):
going because a book feels too hard. And yet it's
the hard books that grabbed them. When I was in
grade three, Missus Brewster was the librarian in Niagara Park
Primary School and I rented higher borrowed the Hobbits, and
she pulled out the stamp and she said, this is
the day it's back. And I took Tolkien home with
me and I started to read. It was just too hard.
(14:30):
I was in grade three. It was way beyond me.
I brought it back. She asked me how I liked that,
and I made up a great, big story about how
much I've loved it, and she said, which parts do
you like most? And I came unraveled because I hadn't
read it, and I made something up. And I can
see it in her eyes. She was like, you deceitful
little man. You did not read that at all. She
didn't say it, she was very polite, but I didn't
read it. Now if my parents, if my dad had
(14:52):
seen the Hobbit in my school library bag and said,
justin of the Hobbits, such a great book, would you
be a okay if I read that to you? There's
the relational stuff. I get to look over Dad's shoulder
as he's reading. So I'm developing competence and I'm choicefully
bringing him into this environment where I start to and
(15:14):
I just can't imagine how that would have changed my feelings.
So what I do with my kids, I have six
of them, is I find books that are a bit
beyond them, and I say to them, i'd love to
read this book because I think you're going to love it.
Back to your point, for boys to love reading, they've
got to see men who love reading. I don't know
if there's anything else I can say that's more potent. Well,
(15:38):
I really hope you enjoyed something a little different on
the show. Today we will link to the full episode
of Boys and Reading on the Your Kids Next Breed podcast,
and a big thank you to Alison Tate and Meghan
Daily for allowing us to share some of that episode
with you. The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin
Roland from Bridge Media. Mim Hammond's provides research, admin and
additional support. And if you think this podcast is going
to be helpful for your family somebody else's, please share
(16:01):
it because if you click those couple of buttons and share,
it takes you about ten or fifteen seconds pass it
along it helps other families to be happier. If you'd
like more info and more resources to make your family happier,
visit us at Happy Families dot com dot a u
Hello, this is the Happy Family's podcast. Today on the
pod something a little bit different. Recently, I was invited
onto the Your Kids Next Read podcast with Alison Tate
and Meghan Daily for a discussion around how we can
get our boys reading more instead of having their heads
stuck in screens. As the name suggests, Your Kid's Next
(00:26):
Read is all about books and reading for children of
all ages. Allison Tate is a children's author, writer and speaker.
She's written a number of books for kids, including adventure
series The Map Maker Chronicles and Maven and Reeve. Meghan
Daly is a teacher, librarian, author and children's literacy educator.
Meghan's been awarded the Australian Teacher Librarian of the Year
(00:46):
and the Queensland Teacher Librarian of the Year, as well
as authoring the best selling book Raising Readers and I
was also joined on this episode by children's author Matt Stanton.
You would know him, I would imagine from the Funny
Kids books, the Board series as well as the books
that Drive Kids Crazy. We'll dive into that discussion next
stay with us. Hello, Welcome to the Happy Families podcast
(01:10):
Real Parenting Solutions, every single day on Australia's most downloaded
parenting podcast. This is doctor Justin Coulson. Today on the pod,
we're replaying an excerpt from the Your Kids Next Read
podcast with Alison Tate and Megan Daily as well as
Matt Stanton. I was a guest on the podcast episode
discussing how we can get our boys reading and addressing
(01:30):
some of the alarming statistics around boys and literacy. We
started off by discussing some of those stats and fleshed
out just what we need to do as parents to
get and keep our boys reading. Hope you enjoyed discussion
and check the show notes for the link to the
full episode.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
First of all, I think it's important to make it
clear that reading has declined across the board. Meaghan and
I talk about kids and reading all the time, and
I think the discussion about boys and reading has been
going on and flaring up since I had my first
son twenty one years ago. Would you agree with that,
Megan Daily?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Absolutely. Our longitudinal studies in Australia, UK and the US
all demonstrate that overall reading rates have declined and that
isn't just a boys in reading issue, even though that's
often where the conversation does flare up. The debate about
boys and reading has been going on for decades. Boys
on average are more likely than girls to read less frequently,
(02:31):
read less widely, and disengage earlier from reading for pleasure.
This has been documented in literacy testing results, publishing trends,
the media, and teacher observations. But it's also important to
recognize that not all boys fit into this pattern and
not all girls escape it.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
And I think, you know, widely reported recent stats from
the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that, you know, for
gen Z, so you know, I guess our fives and
sixes are probably are they at the bottom end of
that quat sure where those lines are. But ten percent
of boys are participating in reading thirteen two point two
percent of girls. So we're not exactly like leaving in
(03:10):
bounds there either. But I think what we're seeing this
time around and this year, it feels to me like
there's an urgency around the data that we haven't seen before.
And I'm wondering, is it different now or does it
just feel different like justin Perhaps you could give us
some thoughts as to why it feels so much more
urgent at present.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, I'm a data guy. I've got a pH d
in psychology, and all I do is look at numbers
and then figure out what that means in real life.
So we've already cover to a few of them. But
what I'm interested in is picture of farm gate or
even front door of your house. At the hinge point
when the door moves, there's not a lot of movement,
but down the road, like the downstream effects all the
(03:54):
way at the other end of the door or the
other end of the farm gate, a little movement near
the hinge to enormous movement down the other end. So
you're sharing stats about primary school, but let's extrapolate that.
Let's build that out and have a look at the
progression into high school. If you have a look at
and I'll only share two quick stats because we really
need to talk about practical things more than the numbers.
(04:14):
But if you have a look at year nine PISA results.
OKAYPIS is the Program for International Student Assessment. Girls are
outpacing the boys by thirty eight points on reading scores.
It puts that is the equivalent thirty eight points is
meaningless without context. That's the equivalent of one full academic
year ahead of the boys. And if we have a
look at the twenty twenty four Naplan results three and
(04:36):
four year seven girls, that's seventy three percent or seventy
five percent. Technically, seventy three percent is what the results
showed were strong or exceeding expectations in writing, but it
was only a smidge and over half of the boys
who achieved the same. The biggest concern for me is
by year nine and eighth boys, about about twelve percent
of boys are functionally illiterate. It's not an intelligence issue.
Is this is the downstream effects of boys not reading
(04:59):
in kin garden, first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade,
that by the time they're big enough to have their
own screen, laptop, iPad device, whatever it is, they don't
have any interest in reading at all. And why would
they because the cheap hit of dope mean that they
get from a twelve second TikTok is stimulating in a
(05:20):
way that I mean, it's hollow, it's shallow. It will
not give you the same sense of engagement purpose meaning satisfaction.
It won't even cover your boredom the same way. But
it's doing the job. The neural architecture of our boys
has been hijacked on our girls been hijacked by the
best brains on the planet, and that's where the battle
(05:43):
is being won, you.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Know, I mean, this is obviously a discussion we can't
have without bringing up the role of screens and social
media into lives of our kids and our boys today.
And justin your review of that Netflix series Adolescent's got
huge traction around this, like there was so much discussion.
But how do we, like, I mean, it's one thing
to talk about it, It's one thing to kind of
have that sort of like massive uptake of interest around
(06:07):
the around that particular series, etc. But how do we
encourage them to put that stuff down and pick up
a book instead? Like I find with boys, you've got
to give them a reason. What reason are we giving them?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
So there's this thing called I mean everyone's heard of it,
but in the nine and seventies it didn't even exist,
This thing called intrinsic motivation. While it existed, but it
hadn't been studied. And intrinsic motivation means that you do
something for the love of it. If we have a
look at what drives a lot of people say, how
do I motivate somebody or how motivated are they? And
it's the wrong question. Alfie Khen, who wrote book called
(06:39):
Punish Bury Awards, says, instead of asking how motivated is someone,
ask how is someone motivated? And there's these different forms
of motivation. So everyone knows external motivation and intrinsic motivation,
but there's a bunch of others in the middle. Fundamentally,
if we want our kids to have those deeper forms
of motivation, we need to put them in environments that
are what psychology researchers call need satisfying environments. So I
(07:05):
need satisfying environment is one where a I feel like
I have a sense of choice or if not choice,
like for example, driving on the left hand side of
the road in Australia, you don't have any choice, but
we do it willingly because we do it volitionally. We
do it choicefully because we get that it makes sense
to drive on the left. It would be chaotic, it
would be traumatic if we drove wherever we wanted. So
(07:25):
we drive on the left because it makes sense. So
that sense of autonomy or choice isn't I get to
have carte blanche and do whatever I want? It's oh yeah,
I see value in this activity, identify it's worth as
an activity for me to do so, therefore I choicefully
step into it. Reading has to feel choiceful. That's the
first key ingredient for a need satisfying environment. The second
(07:46):
thing is that reading, or any activity you want to
have those deeper forms of motivation, it has to feel
like it's something that I can be competent in, so
that I can be masterful ad And unfortunately the stats
show really clearly bit too many others, too many of
our boys do not feel masterful when they pick up
a book. They don't feel competent. They actually feel incapable.
It doesn't make any sense. It's not working for And
(08:07):
the third thing is what we call relatedness or a
sense of mutual and reciprocal I feel like I belong here.
And while in interpersonal context that's easy like you, Allison
and me and Matt and Megan, we all get to
sit together and feel like we're in this connected conversation.
But a book does the same thing. The books that
(08:28):
our children pick up, if they are willing to engage
in it in a relational way, the book talks to them,
the book helps them to feel things. But if they
don't feel competent, if they feel like they're being forced,
or if they feel like the book isn't speaking to them,
they won't read it. Therefore, And I know this is
kind of a technical answer, but our job is to
(08:49):
help them to feel like they get that it matters
and they want to do it because they feel like
they can do it at a reasonable level and it
speaks to them. My number one salution is fine books
that they want to read, like if you've got a
kid that if you've got a kid that loves rugby league,
go and buy Rugby League Weekly. I don't even know
if that exists, by the way, I'm making it up.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
No, it does, and we talk about it all the time.
We are constantly saying like, if they want to read
about rugby, then well let's just go hard down the
rugby road for sure.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, yeah, totally. On The Happy Family's Podcast today, a
discussion about boys and reading, taken from the Your Kid's
Next Read podcast. Back with more right after the break,
stay with us.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
So, Matt, I'm just going to come back to you
for a minute here with this one because there's a
few things I want to unpack here. So there was
the first thing I wanted to say was when we
talk about choiceness and we talk about relating and stuff,
you mentioned that when you do your school visits, you're
trying to make it look like you're not trying to
turn these kids into bookworms. Is that, like, what are
(09:54):
you seeing as some of the biggest barriers to reading
for boys? Is it that peer pressure thing? Because we
went to a literary long reach last week and we
were talking in the green room afterwards, and one of
the authors was saying that he had, you know, hit
us the group, you know, like, you know what, why
does everyone love reading? And blah blah blah, and a
couple of kids had said, you know, it's these it's
(10:15):
that and this this. This boy put his hand up
and he's like, yeah, no, it's for nerds, it's for deeps.
So there is that certain sense of boys not seeing
themselves as readers. Are you seeing that as well?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
I think we we have a couple of interesting things
going on where the role that technology is playing in these.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Kids' lives and I'm a dad in my kids lives.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
Is is taking up some of that space that kind
of I go, I go to be alone in space.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
So the space that when I was a kid it
was reading, reading was there.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
I'll go and do something on my bed for a while,
I'll fill in space. We've never filled that spot with
tech and and so that often means that the idea,
especially for a kid who already spends a decent amount
of time isolating with a device, to then suggest that
they take a book and go and isolate. That's just
(11:12):
not appealing at all. And what I'm seeing and thinking
a lot about is how kids are looking for connection
and the fact that books and reading need to kind
of stay anchored and connected in that space. So that's
why I spend a lot of time talking about parents
reading to kids and how important that is, because we
(11:37):
need to create these positive moments of connection around books
that are relational, and then we need to look for opportunities,
especially with boys, to.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Connect them. And that's where I think it's around stories.
That's why I try to talk about stories often more
than books, because we all love stories. Stories are innately human,
and we love sharing and them kids all kids love
hearing and sharing stories. So what I'm trying to do
in the way that I speak to kids in schools.
Is not say you know, take this book and go
(12:11):
and read it on your own by yourself. I'm trying
to say, there are these amazing stories in here you
need to connect in like, come and see what you
can find.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Okay, So justin I'm interested in your idea, your thoughts
on the idea of boys not seeing themselves as readers,
which is something that has come out in the discourse.
You know that there's this idea that reading. They don't
see a role for themselves in the reading culture because
they think it's for girls, or it can be you know,
quite female dominated. And I will say right now that
I would say ninety eight percent of the members of
(12:42):
the Your Kids Next Read community are female. So there's
a lot of you know, a lot of women in
there trying to encourage reading in kids and things like that.
So do you think that's do you think that's is
that a thing? Is that something that the boys are
taking on board that there's a lot of women doing this,
But it's not for me.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
One of the most fascinating findings as I've looked in
the fields of anthropology, sociology, psychology, and philosophy is a
sense of agreement across cultures and through history that masculinity
is learned, masculinity is constructed. In other words, you learn
masculinity as a boy by watching the men around you.
(13:24):
So how many of the boys in the classes that
you guys are talking to, in the grade levels that
you guys are talking to. How many of those boys
go home and see their dad sitting on the couch
with a book in his hand. How many of them
are having men model searching through pages, looking for a
(13:46):
quote or finding that incredible story that they want to read.
How many of these kids, male or female, they've got parents.
I mean, this is all about getting kids reading right.
How many have parents who sit down and say, hey,
let me read to you. I'm going to read to
you every night. One thing that really is an obstacle,
especially around confidence, is some kids just they won't get
(14:08):
going because a book feels too hard. And yet it's
the hard books that grabbed them. When I was in
grade three, Missus Brewster was the librarian in Niagara Park
Primary School and I rented higher borrowed the Hobbits, and
she pulled out the stamp and she said, this is
the day it's back. And I took Tolkien home with
me and I started to read. It was just too hard.
(14:30):
I was in grade three. It was way beyond me.
I brought it back. She asked me how I liked that,
and I made up a great, big story about how
much I've loved it, and she said, which parts do
you like most? And I came unraveled because I hadn't
read it, and I made something up. And I can
see it in her eyes. She was like, you deceitful
little man. You did not read that at all. She
didn't say it, she was very polite, but I didn't
read it. Now if my parents, if my dad had
(14:52):
seen the Hobbit in my school library bag and said,
justin of the Hobbits, such a great book, would you
be a okay if I read that to you? There's
the relational stuff. I get to look over Dad's shoulder
as he's reading. So I'm developing competence and I'm choicefully
bringing him into this environment where I start to and
(15:14):
I just can't imagine how that would have changed my feelings.
So what I do with my kids, I have six
of them, is I find books that are a bit
beyond them, and I say to them, i'd love to
read this book because I think you're going to love it.
Back to your point, for boys to love reading, they've
got to see men who love reading. I don't know
if there's anything else I can say that's more potent. Well,
(15:38):
I really hope you enjoyed something a little different on
the show. Today we will link to the full episode
of Boys and Reading on the Your Kids Next Breed podcast,
and a big thank you to Alison Tate and Meghan
Daily for allowing us to share some of that episode
with you. The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin
Roland from Bridge Media. Mim Hammond's provides research, admin and
additional support. And if you think this podcast is going
to be helpful for your family somebody else's, please share
(16:01):
it because if you click those couple of buttons and share,
it takes you about ten or fifteen seconds pass it
along it helps other families to be happier. If you'd
like more info and more resources to make your family happier,
visit us at Happy Families dot com dot a u
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