The research results are also playing a key role in the development of approaches to raising boys achievements as part of the national literacy strategy. The Fact and Fiction project, led by Dr Gemma Moss at the University s Research and Graduate School of Education, has revealed that a low reading proficiency affects the self-esteem of young boys far more than girls of the same age. Whilst weaker girl readers are willing to spend more time reading undemanding fiction, weaker boy readers often try to avoid reading altogether, especially when they are allotted fiction texts by their teachers which mark them out to their peers as poor readers. They then turn to non-fiction reading as a way of masking low proficiency.
Boys use non-fiction material to escape any judgements about their proficiency as readers.
By steering round the text and using pictures as prompts to display what they already know, they can maintain their status with their peers. The end result is that they spend less time actually reading, explains Dr Moss. Other results have shown that assessments about children's proficiency as readers are made almost exclusively using fiction texts. High anxiety about children's progress at reading is shared by teachers and parents, but although weaker girl readers are happy to accept their teacher s judgement about their proficiency as readers, many weaker boy readers are not. However, simply replacing fiction with non-fiction as a way of pandering to boys' existing interests would not tackle the core problem.