Name:  Karen Loerke

Professional Profile:  Reading Specialist, Edmonton Public Schools

Area of Research:

Claims that boys are not doing as well as girls in reading are widespread. Claims of boys’ underachievement in reading can be heard on talk shows, are reported in the news, written about in the professional literature, commented on in newspapers, discussed in parent magazines, researched in the academic literature, and presented on at conferences. Claims about boys not doing as well as girls in reading are also persistent and contradictory. Going as far back as the early 19^th century (Ayres, 1909; Commins, 1928; Lincoln, 1927; Stroud & Lindquist, 1942; Thorndike, 1903), reports have similarly  arrived at divergent conclusions. Some studies claim that girls outperform boys in reading achievement (Canadian Council on Learning, 2007), while others challenge the claim, concluding that the evidence has been greatly overstated (White, 2007). The purpose of my study is to analyze methodically all the evidence-based research studies that have been reported on sex differences in reading achievement in order to bring clarity to the persistent, contradictory, comparative claims regarding boys’ and girls’ differential reading achievement.