An article in the NYTimes on Jan 30, 2026, (Why Boys Are Behind in Reading at Every Age) discusses boys’ continued decline in reading levels. This is something that’s no secret to educators or parents. (And let me be clear that the girls are not winning any races!) The question until now has been how to get kids to read more. But maybe the better question is why it even matters.
Studies Show
Yes. One of the ever-present studies that you may or may not put faith in while not being able to ignore the evidence of reading decline you see with your own kids and their classmates, shows that, for a variety of reasons that include heavy hours of screentime as a major factor, boys are about a grade behind girls on average by the twelfth grade. And, the gap is widening. Not because the girls are doing better and better, but because the boys are doing worse and worse. Let’s for the moment accept as a fact that boys’ reading levels have dropped, which leads to problems with writing, and makes it difficult to perform well in school.
So What
We can’t afford a “so what” attitude to the decline in reading skills – for any group – because it’s beginning to look like declining enrollment in college for boys may be tied to their percieved inability to do well academically because they can’t understand the material. I don’t know about you, but to me there’s a world of difference in having a kid who doesn’t want to go to college because they have another, viable plan for their life and a kid who doesn’t want to go to college because they’re convinced that they can’t cut it.
Fix It
Years ago, the conventional wisdom was that girls just weren’t very good in math and science. Those “boy things” were better left to the men, so girls focused on other subjects. Once educators intervened with programs to involve girls in math and science, girls improved in those subjects. The fact that they improved as a result of encouragement and academic support leads researchers to posit that the same could be true with an initiative to get boys reading.
Get Started
You can wait until reading iniatives are formulated, codified, and introduced at your school, or you can get busy with interventions of your own right now. What sort of interventions? You can have a familly read-in, read aloud and talk about stories with your kids, use our Talk About posts to talk about books with your kids, or use the Opening Questions posts to help your kids – boys and girls – get started on a book. You don’t have to be a trained educator to expect your child to read and take steps to help them on the way to becoming avid readers.
Bottom Line
You have nothing to lose by engaging in family literacy activites. If your kid turns out to have a learning difference that’s hindering progress, you’ll be able to point it out and take steps to mitigate it. You can also switch to movies if this is the case, or you have a wide gap in ages between your kids, as a way to talk about story. If all is well, and it’s a matter of priorities and focused time — you’re the parent. You can help your child pick a book at their reading level and tell them they need to plan their time to allow for reading or leafing through a magazine or listening to an audiobook for 15 minutes a week. That’s a pretty small first step. And who knows, your kids might even like it.
NYTimes, Jan 30, 2026 Why Boys Are Behind in Reading at Every Age by Claire Cane Miller