Male Reading Teachers: Effects on Inner-city Boys

Abstract

Eighteen inner-city first and second grade boys participated in a pilot study on the effect of sex of reading teacher on boys’ attitudes toward and performance in reading. Each boy participated with either a male or a female research assistant in a 22-week Paired Reading intervention using texts shown to be of high interest to boys. Findings suggest that these contexts yield significant increases in boys’ reading performance, sense of physiological well-being while reading, and their sense of reading progress regardless of the sex of their reading teacher.