Reading is an essential life skill both in work as well as in school. Numerous investigations have shown that children that read well will do better academically than those that struggle to read. Because of the importance of reading, essential resources and efforts are spent teaching children to read. Boys are a little slower in mastering up reading skills than girls and have a tendency to be a little slower in developing language skills than girls on the whole. However, studies also show that boys seem to enjoy reading as much as girls do in the early years but as they approach the ages of eight to twelve, they begin to lose interest in reading. Unless this is corrected, teen boys tend to identify themselves as someone who does not like literature or someone who doesn’t read well.

Why do boys begin to lose interest in reading? What experts seem to be saying is that boys lose interest because of several factors. The primary cause is the material that we present them in books. We often present them with narrative types of literature about subjects that are not particularly interesting to them. Research shows that girls do much better at absorbing reading material that is given in a narrative form while boys do better at absorbing material that is presented in an informational way. Boys also seem to be interested in material that is either more hands on, reading that talks about things they can use or do or reading material that talks about activities that they enjoy, of course this will vary from boy to boy! However, this is not the literature that we as adults frequently consider to be reading and as result we do not present this kind of material to boys to read. Another reason why boys lose interest in reading, according to experts, is that there are not sufficient male modeling of reading.

Fortunately, we are beginning to understand the problem and are commencing to address the issue. Efforts are being made to make reading of Freedom Jonathan Franzen more attractive to boys by seeing reading as any function that requires a boy to look at words and decode the meaning of the words in way that he comprehends what the writer of Freedom by Jonathan Franzen intended to communicate. This can take the form of how to manuals, more boy oriented literature, news papers and other kinds of written material that does not fit the confines of more customary literature. Equally encouraging is that when boys are allowed to read literature such as Oprah Freedom book, they carry on to enjoy reading. As long as this is identified as reading, boys will identify themselves as readers. This enjoyment of reading for many means a greater appreciation of reading in adulthood with the essential skill to be good readers.