> I really think that this is a major part of why boys fall behind. Reading in general is the basis of learning, and boys over time have moved away.
Have to disagree; the sort of reading discussed in that study isn't conducive to positive educational outcomes, but rather is more of a social activity. (Yeah, I know reading is often thought of as a solitary activity, but reading fictional narratives may be better understood as desynchronized socialization.)
Don't get me wrong, children can enjoy an educational advantage from pleasure-reading early on, as an introduction to how to read. But after that, pleasure-reading is a largely wasteful activity, at least in terms of educational advancement.
Further advancement in reading may come from learning to read expanded English -- including [Markdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown), $\mathrm{\TeX}$, `(string)"source code"`, M+A+T+H, technical texts, diagrams, schematics, etc. -- but it's unlikely that reading young-adult narratives provides the reader with any significant advantages. In fact, I suspect that it's likely to correlate with negative educational outcomes.
David Epstein's Range has a great viewpoint on this.
He states that there are Kind Learning Environments. These are places like golf, chess, or classical piano. Here, the feedback is quick, the goals are clear, and relative ranking is knowable. To excel in these environments, it is all about drill-and-kill. Repetition and stick-hours are the name of the game.
This is in contrast to Unkind Learning Environments. These are places like tennis, business, or jazz. In the unkind world feedback is harder to come by, goals are unclear, and relative ranking is often not knowable. To excel in an unkind environment, Epstein states that you have to be an information grazer. Getting as many viewpoints and mental schemas as possible is the best way forward in an uncertain world.
Epstein's book goes much more into depth on this and has many very memorable examples. It's on Bill Gate's best books of 2020 list, despite being published in 2019.
So, I think that having more reading of any sort is then better for unkind environments, as it is a method of information grazing. Even terse dime-novels will often expose you to new ways of thinking, a new word, or a new idea. Though not the best method of information grazing (whatever that may be), it matters what boys replace it with, if anything. If they replace it with the kind learning environments of CoD or WorldofTanks, then that is not as good. If they replace it with foreign films and TV, that may be just as good.
Epstein goes into this better in the book, but from what I (a non tennis player) can tell, it's that it is mostly a mental game and not a physical one, at least once you achieve the baseline fitness and skill. Again, I don't play tennis so I am simply parroting here.
I would think that any person that reads broadly should be better at business or other unkind learning environments, all other things being equal. Unfortunately, at least in most of the world's business environments I know of, when it comes to gender all other things are very much not equal.
It seems more likely that a third variable is effecting both reading amount and education performance for boys.
A shot in the dark guess could be that the attention industry (and the ad industry in general) is better at targeting boys grabbing them away from both homework and at home reading at a greater scale then the other genders.
I don't agree. You can learn to read complicated schematics and technical texts in a vocational/technical high school; I don't think they are linked to educational achievement as much as people think. Disclosure: I am an ex-voc tech student; most of the people who would go on to higher education beyond it were the ones who were bad at their trades and mismatched, and they were mostly female with some exceptions. (I chose it because i was fiercely bullied in junior high, and wanted to avoid the students who would go on to the college prep high school.)
You definitely need to learn to read schematics and technical texts to acquire an advanced education. It's basic literacy in academic and professional contexts; being unable to read prevents one from communicating and is a serious impediment to learning.
Have to disagree; the sort of reading discussed in that study isn't conducive to positive educational outcomes, but rather is more of a social activity. (Yeah, I know reading is often thought of as a solitary activity, but reading fictional narratives may be better understood as desynchronized socialization.)
Don't get me wrong, children can enjoy an educational advantage from pleasure-reading early on, as an introduction to how to read. But after that, pleasure-reading is a largely wasteful activity, at least in terms of educational advancement.
Further advancement in reading may come from learning to read expanded English -- including [Markdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown), $\mathrm{\TeX}$, `(string)"source code"`, M+A+T+H, technical texts, diagrams, schematics, etc. -- but it's unlikely that reading young-adult narratives provides the reader with any significant advantages. In fact, I suspect that it's likely to correlate with negative educational outcomes.