America's Reading Gender Gap

Article here. Excerpt:

'The good news is that reading scores for 9 and 13-year-olds are the highest ever according to results released this week from the 2008 National Assessment of Educational Progress.

The bad news is that boys trail girls in reading performance at all age levels. The gap at age 9 is 8 points, at age 13 is 8 points, and at age 17 is 11 points. This is not a new trend—boys have been scoring lower than girls on U.S. Department of Education reading tests for more than 30 years.

The reading gender gap spans every racial and ethnic group, and categorically finds boys underperforming girls regardless of income, disability, or English-speaking ability.'