Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / From TikToks to Tolkien: Bringing Boys Back to Books

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From TikToks to Tolkien: Bringing Boys Back to Books · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, this is the Happy Family's podcast. Today on the
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  Speaker 1: pod something a little bit different. Recently, I was invited
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  Speaker 1: onto the Your Kids Next Read podcast with Alison Tate
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  Speaker 1: and Meghan Daily for a discussion around how we can
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  Speaker 1: get our boys reading more instead of having their heads
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  Speaker 1: stuck in screens. As the name suggests, Your Kid's Next
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  Speaker 1: Read is all about books and reading for children of
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  Speaker 1: all ages. Allison Tate is a children's author, writer and speaker.
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  Speaker 1: She's written a number of books for kids, including adventure
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  Speaker 1: series The Map Maker Chronicles and Maven and Reeve. Meghan
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  Speaker 1: Daly is a teacher, librarian, author and children's literacy educator.
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  Speaker 1: Meghan's been awarded the Australian Teacher Librarian of the Year
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  Speaker 1: and the Queensland Teacher Librarian of the Year, as well
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  Speaker 1: as authoring the best selling book Raising Readers and I
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  Speaker 1: was also joined on this episode by children's author Matt Stanton.
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  Speaker 1: You would know him, I would imagine from the Funny
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  Speaker 1: Kids books, the Board series as well as the books
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  Speaker 1: that Drive Kids Crazy. We'll dive into that discussion next
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  Speaker 1: stay with us. Hello, Welcome to the Happy Families podcast
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  Speaker 1: Real Parenting Solutions, every single day on Australia's most downloaded
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  Speaker 1: parenting podcast. This is doctor Justin Coulson. Today on the pod,
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  Speaker 1: we're replaying an excerpt from the Your Kids Next Read
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  Speaker 1: podcast with Alison Tate and Megan Daily as well as
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  Speaker 1: Matt Stanton. I was a guest on the podcast episode
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  Speaker 1: discussing how we can get our boys reading and addressing
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  Speaker 1: some of the alarming statistics around boys and literacy. We
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  Speaker 1: started off by discussing some of those stats and fleshed
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  Speaker 1: out just what we need to do as parents to
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  Speaker 1: get and keep our boys reading. Hope you enjoyed discussion
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  Speaker 1: and check the show notes for the link to the
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  Speaker 1: full episode.
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  Speaker 2: First of all, I think it's important to make it
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  Speaker 2: clear that reading has declined across the board. Meaghan and
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  Speaker 2: I talk about kids and reading all the time, and
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  Speaker 2: I think the discussion about boys and reading has been
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  Speaker 2: going on and flaring up since I had my first
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  Speaker 2: son twenty one years ago. Would you agree with that,
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  Speaker 2: Megan Daily?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah?
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  Speaker 4: Absolutely. Our longitudinal studies in Australia, UK and the US
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  Speaker 4: all demonstrate that overall reading rates have declined and that
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  Speaker 4: isn't just a boys in reading issue, even though that's
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  Speaker 4: often where the conversation does flare up. The debate about
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  Speaker 4: boys and reading has been going on for decades. Boys
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  Speaker 4: on average are more likely than girls to read less frequently,
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  Speaker 4: read less widely, and disengage earlier from reading for pleasure.
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  Speaker 4: This has been documented in literacy testing results, publishing trends,
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  Speaker 4: the media, and teacher observations. But it's also important to
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  Speaker 4: recognize that not all boys fit into this pattern and
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  Speaker 4: not all girls escape it.
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  Speaker 2: And I think, you know, widely reported recent stats from
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  Speaker 2: the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that, you know, for
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  Speaker 2: gen Z, so you know, I guess our fives and
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  Speaker 2: sixes are probably are they at the bottom end of
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  Speaker 2: that quat sure where those lines are. But ten percent
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  Speaker 2: of boys are participating in reading thirteen two point two
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  Speaker 2: percent of girls. So we're not exactly like leaving in
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  Speaker 2: bounds there either. But I think what we're seeing this
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  Speaker 2: time around and this year, it feels to me like
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  Speaker 2: there's an urgency around the data that we haven't seen before.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm wondering, is it different now or does it
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  Speaker 2: just feel different like justin Perhaps you could give us
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  Speaker 2: some thoughts as to why it feels so much more
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  Speaker 2: urgent at present.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a data guy. I've got a pH d
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  Speaker 1: in psychology, and all I do is look at numbers
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  Speaker 1: and then figure out what that means in real life.
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  Speaker 1: So we've already cover to a few of them. But
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  Speaker 1: what I'm interested in is picture of farm gate or
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  Speaker 1: even front door of your house. At the hinge point
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  Speaker 1: when the door moves, there's not a lot of movement,
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  Speaker 1: but down the road, like the downstream effects all the
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  Speaker 1: way at the other end of the door or the
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  Speaker 1: other end of the farm gate, a little movement near
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  Speaker 1: the hinge to enormous movement down the other end. So
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  Speaker 1: you're sharing stats about primary school, but let's extrapolate that.
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  Speaker 1: Let's build that out and have a look at the
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  Speaker 1: progression into high school. If you have a look at
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  Speaker 1: and I'll only share two quick stats because we really
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  Speaker 1: need to talk about practical things more than the numbers.
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  Speaker 1: But if you have a look at year nine PISA results.
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  Speaker 1: OKAYPIS is the Program for International Student Assessment. Girls are
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  Speaker 1: outpacing the boys by thirty eight points on reading scores.
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  Speaker 1: It puts that is the equivalent thirty eight points is
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  Speaker 1: meaningless without context. That's the equivalent of one full academic
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  Speaker 1: year ahead of the boys. And if we have a
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  Speaker 1: look at the twenty twenty four Naplan results three and
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  Speaker 1: four year seven girls, that's seventy three percent or seventy
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  Speaker 1: five percent. Technically, seventy three percent is what the results
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  Speaker 1: showed were strong or exceeding expectations in writing, but it
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  Speaker 1: was only a smidge and over half of the boys
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  Speaker 1: who achieved the same. The biggest concern for me is
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  Speaker 1: by year nine and eighth boys, about about twelve percent
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  Speaker 1: of boys are functionally illiterate. It's not an intelligence issue.
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  Speaker 1: Is this is the downstream effects of boys not reading
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  Speaker 1: in kin garden, first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade,
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  Speaker 1: that by the time they're big enough to have their
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  Speaker 1: own screen, laptop, iPad device, whatever it is, they don't
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  Speaker 1: have any interest in reading at all. And why would
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  Speaker 1: they because the cheap hit of dope mean that they
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  Speaker 1: get from a twelve second TikTok is stimulating in a
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  Speaker 1: way that I mean, it's hollow, it's shallow. It will
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  Speaker 1: not give you the same sense of engagement purpose meaning satisfaction.
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  Speaker 1: It won't even cover your boredom the same way. But
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  Speaker 1: it's doing the job. The neural architecture of our boys
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  Speaker 1: has been hijacked on our girls been hijacked by the
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  Speaker 1: best brains on the planet, and that's where the battle
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  Speaker 1: is being won, you.
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  Speaker 2: Know, I mean, this is obviously a discussion we can't
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  Speaker 2: have without bringing up the role of screens and social
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  Speaker 2: media into lives of our kids and our boys today.
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  Speaker 2: And justin your review of that Netflix series Adolescent's got
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  Speaker 2: huge traction around this, like there was so much discussion.
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  Speaker 2: But how do we, like, I mean, it's one thing
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  Speaker 2: to talk about it, It's one thing to kind of
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  Speaker 2: have that sort of like massive uptake of interest around
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  Speaker 2: the around that particular series, etc. But how do we
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  Speaker 2: encourage them to put that stuff down and pick up
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  Speaker 2: a book instead? Like I find with boys, you've got
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  Speaker 2: to give them a reason. What reason are we giving them?
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  Speaker 1: So there's this thing called I mean everyone's heard of it,
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  Speaker 1: but in the nine and seventies it didn't even exist,
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  Speaker 1: This thing called intrinsic motivation. While it existed, but it
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  Speaker 1: hadn't been studied. And intrinsic motivation means that you do
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  Speaker 1: something for the love of it. If we have a
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  Speaker 1: look at what drives a lot of people say, how
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  Speaker 1: do I motivate somebody or how motivated are they? And
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  Speaker 1: it's the wrong question. Alfie Khen, who wrote book called
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  Speaker 1: Punish Bury Awards, says, instead of asking how motivated is someone,
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  Speaker 1: ask how is someone motivated? And there's these different forms
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  Speaker 1: of motivation. So everyone knows external motivation and intrinsic motivation,
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  Speaker 1: but there's a bunch of others in the middle. Fundamentally,
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  Speaker 1: if we want our kids to have those deeper forms
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  Speaker 1: of motivation, we need to put them in environments that
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  Speaker 1: are what psychology researchers call need satisfying environments. So I
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  Speaker 1: need satisfying environment is one where a I feel like
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  Speaker 1: I have a sense of choice or if not choice,
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  Speaker 1: like for example, driving on the left hand side of
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  Speaker 1: the road in Australia, you don't have any choice, but
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  Speaker 1: we do it willingly because we do it volitionally. We
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  Speaker 1: do it choicefully because we get that it makes sense
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  Speaker 1: to drive on the left. It would be chaotic, it
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  Speaker 1: would be traumatic if we drove wherever we wanted. So
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  Speaker 1: we drive on the left because it makes sense. So
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  Speaker 1: that sense of autonomy or choice isn't I get to
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  Speaker 1: have carte blanche and do whatever I want? It's oh yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I see value in this activity, identify it's worth as
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  Speaker 1: an activity for me to do so, therefore I choicefully
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  Speaker 1: step into it. Reading has to feel choiceful. That's the
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  Speaker 1: first key ingredient for a need satisfying environment. The second
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  Speaker 1: thing is that reading, or any activity you want to
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  Speaker 1: have those deeper forms of motivation, it has to feel
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  Speaker 1: like it's something that I can be competent in, so
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  Speaker 1: that I can be masterful ad And unfortunately the stats
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  Speaker 1: show really clearly bit too many others, too many of
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  Speaker 1: our boys do not feel masterful when they pick up
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  Speaker 1: a book. They don't feel competent. They actually feel incapable.
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  Speaker 1: It doesn't make any sense. It's not working for And
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  Speaker 1: the third thing is what we call relatedness or a
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  Speaker 1: sense of mutual and reciprocal I feel like I belong here.
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  Speaker 1: And while in interpersonal context that's easy like you, Allison
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  Speaker 1: and me and Matt and Megan, we all get to
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  Speaker 1: sit together and feel like we're in this connected conversation.
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  Speaker 1: But a book does the same thing. The books that
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  Speaker 1: our children pick up, if they are willing to engage
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  Speaker 1: in it in a relational way, the book talks to them,
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  Speaker 1: the book helps them to feel things. But if they
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  Speaker 1: don't feel competent, if they feel like they're being forced,
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  Speaker 1: or if they feel like the book isn't speaking to them,
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  Speaker 1: they won't read it. Therefore, And I know this is
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  Speaker 1: kind of a technical answer, but our job is to
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  Speaker 1: help them to feel like they get that it matters
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  Speaker 1: and they want to do it because they feel like
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  Speaker 1: they can do it at a reasonable level and it
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  Speaker 1: speaks to them. My number one salution is fine books
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  Speaker 1: that they want to read, like if you've got a
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  Speaker 1: kid that if you've got a kid that loves rugby league,
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  Speaker 1: go and buy Rugby League Weekly. I don't even know
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  Speaker 1: if that exists, by the way, I'm making it up.
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  Speaker 2: No, it does, and we talk about it all the time.
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  Speaker 2: We are constantly saying like, if they want to read
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  Speaker 2: about rugby, then well let's just go hard down the
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  Speaker 2: rugby road for sure.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, totally. On The Happy Family's Podcast today, a
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  Speaker 1: discussion about boys and reading, taken from the Your Kid's
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  Speaker 1: Next Read podcast. Back with more right after the break,
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  Speaker 1: stay with us.
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  Speaker 2: So, Matt, I'm just going to come back to you
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  Speaker 2: for a minute here with this one because there's a
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  Speaker 2: few things I want to unpack here. So there was
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  Speaker 2: the first thing I wanted to say was when we
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  Speaker 2: talk about choiceness and we talk about relating and stuff,
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  Speaker 2: you mentioned that when you do your school visits, you're
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  Speaker 2: trying to make it look like you're not trying to
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  Speaker 2: turn these kids into bookworms. Is that, like, what are
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  Speaker 2: you seeing as some of the biggest barriers to reading
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  Speaker 2: for boys? Is it that peer pressure thing? Because we
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  Speaker 2: went to a literary long reach last week and we
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  Speaker 2: were talking in the green room afterwards, and one of
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  Speaker 2: the authors was saying that he had, you know, hit
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  Speaker 2: us the group, you know, like, you know what, why
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  Speaker 2: does everyone love reading? And blah blah blah, and a
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  Speaker 2: couple of kids had said, you know, it's these it's
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  Speaker 2: that and this this. This boy put his hand up
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  Speaker 2: and he's like, yeah, no, it's for nerds, it's for deeps.
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  Speaker 2: So there is that certain sense of boys not seeing
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  Speaker 2: themselves as readers. Are you seeing that as well?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah? I think so.
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  Speaker 5: I think we we have a couple of interesting things
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  Speaker 5: going on where the role that technology is playing in these.
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  Speaker 3: Kids' lives and I'm a dad in my kids lives.
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  Speaker 5: Is is taking up some of that space that kind
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  Speaker 5: of I go, I go to be alone in space.
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  Speaker 3: So the space that when I was a kid it
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  Speaker 3: was reading, reading was there.
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  Speaker 5: I'll go and do something on my bed for a while,
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  Speaker 5: I'll fill in space. We've never filled that spot with
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  Speaker 5: tech and and so that often means that the idea,
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  Speaker 5: especially for a kid who already spends a decent amount
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  Speaker 5: of time isolating with a device, to then suggest that
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  Speaker 5: they take a book and go and isolate. That's just
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  Speaker 5: not appealing at all. And what I'm seeing and thinking
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  Speaker 5: a lot about is how kids are looking for connection
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  Speaker 5: and the fact that books and reading need to kind
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  Speaker 5: of stay anchored and connected in that space. So that's
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  Speaker 5: why I spend a lot of time talking about parents
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  Speaker 5: reading to kids and how important that is, because we
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  Speaker 5: need to create these positive moments of connection around books
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  Speaker 5: that are relational, and then we need to look for opportunities,
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  Speaker 5: especially with boys, to.
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  Speaker 3: Connect them. And that's where I think it's around stories.
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  Speaker 3: That's why I try to talk about stories often more
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  Speaker 3: than books, because we all love stories. Stories are innately human,
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  Speaker 3: and we love sharing and them kids all kids love
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  Speaker 3: hearing and sharing stories. So what I'm trying to do
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  Speaker 3: in the way that I speak to kids in schools.
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  Speaker 3: Is not say you know, take this book and go
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  Speaker 3: and read it on your own by yourself. I'm trying
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  Speaker 3: to say, there are these amazing stories in here you
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  Speaker 3: need to connect in like, come and see what you
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  Speaker 3: can find.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, So justin I'm interested in your idea, your thoughts
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  Speaker 2: on the idea of boys not seeing themselves as readers,
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  Speaker 2: which is something that has come out in the discourse.
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  Speaker 2: You know that there's this idea that reading. They don't
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  Speaker 2: see a role for themselves in the reading culture because
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  Speaker 2: they think it's for girls, or it can be you know,
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  Speaker 2: quite female dominated. And I will say right now that
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  Speaker 2: I would say ninety eight percent of the members of
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  Speaker 2: the Your Kids Next Read community are female. So there's
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  Speaker 2: a lot of you know, a lot of women in
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  Speaker 2: there trying to encourage reading in kids and things like that.
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  Speaker 2: So do you think that's do you think that's is
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  Speaker 2: that a thing? Is that something that the boys are
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  Speaker 2: taking on board that there's a lot of women doing this,
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  Speaker 2: But it's not for me.
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  Speaker 1: One of the most fascinating findings as I've looked in
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  Speaker 1: the fields of anthropology, sociology, psychology, and philosophy is a
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  Speaker 1: sense of agreement across cultures and through history that masculinity
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  Speaker 1: is learned, masculinity is constructed. In other words, you learn
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  Speaker 1: masculinity as a boy by watching the men around you.
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  Speaker 1: So how many of the boys in the classes that
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  Speaker 1: you guys are talking to, in the grade levels that
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  Speaker 1: you guys are talking to. How many of those boys
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  Speaker 1: go home and see their dad sitting on the couch
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  Speaker 1: with a book in his hand. How many of them
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  Speaker 1: are having men model searching through pages, looking for a
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  Speaker 1: quote or finding that incredible story that they want to read.
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  Speaker 1: How many of these kids, male or female, they've got parents.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, this is all about getting kids reading right.
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  Speaker 1: How many have parents who sit down and say, hey,
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  Speaker 1: let me read to you. I'm going to read to
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  Speaker 1: you every night. One thing that really is an obstacle,
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  Speaker 1: especially around confidence, is some kids just they won't get
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  Speaker 1: going because a book feels too hard. And yet it's
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  Speaker 1: the hard books that grabbed them. When I was in
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  Speaker 1: grade three, Missus Brewster was the librarian in Niagara Park
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  Speaker 1: Primary School and I rented higher borrowed the Hobbits, and
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  Speaker 1: she pulled out the stamp and she said, this is
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  Speaker 1: the day it's back. And I took Tolkien home with
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  Speaker 1: me and I started to read. It was just too hard.
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  Speaker 1: I was in grade three. It was way beyond me.
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  Speaker 1: I brought it back. She asked me how I liked that,
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  Speaker 1: and I made up a great, big story about how
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  Speaker 1: much I've loved it, and she said, which parts do
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  Speaker 1: you like most? And I came unraveled because I hadn't
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  Speaker 1: read it, and I made something up. And I can
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  Speaker 1: see it in her eyes. She was like, you deceitful
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  Speaker 1: little man. You did not read that at all. She
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  Speaker 1: didn't say it, she was very polite, but I didn't
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  Speaker 1: read it. Now if my parents, if my dad had
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  Speaker 1: seen the Hobbit in my school library bag and said,
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  Speaker 1: justin of the Hobbits, such a great book, would you
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  Speaker 1: be a okay if I read that to you? There's
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  Speaker 1: the relational stuff. I get to look over Dad's shoulder
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  Speaker 1: as he's reading. So I'm developing competence and I'm choicefully
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  Speaker 1: bringing him into this environment where I start to and
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  Speaker 1: I just can't imagine how that would have changed my feelings.
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  Speaker 1: So what I do with my kids, I have six
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  Speaker 1: of them, is I find books that are a bit
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  Speaker 1: beyond them, and I say to them, i'd love to
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  Speaker 1: read this book because I think you're going to love it.
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  Speaker 1: Back to your point, for boys to love reading, they've
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  Speaker 1: got to see men who love reading. I don't know
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: if there's anything else I can say that's more potent. Well,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I really hope you enjoyed something a little different on
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: the show. Today we will link to the full episode
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: of Boys and Reading on the Your Kids Next Breed podcast,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and a big thank you to Alison Tate and Meghan
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Daily for allowing us to share some of that episode
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: with you. The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Roland from Bridge Media. Mim Hammond's provides research, admin and
• 15:56
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• 16:11
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