Boys Don’t Read Enough
“Understanding why girls are so much more inclined to read might help eradicate what is proving to be a stubborn gender gap both in the U.S. and around the world: The lagging educational outcomes of boys and men. Reading for pleasure is, as the OECD has concluded, a habit that can prove integral to performing well in the classroom. ‘Any cognitive skill can be improved with practice,’ Reilly says. ‘If girls are reading more outside of school’—if they’re doing so out of an intrinsic motivation rather than because they have to— ‘this provides them with thousands of hours of additional reading over the course of their development.’”