Gender Differences in Reading Habits Among Boys and Girls of Basic School in Estonia

AbstractProblem Statement: Reading habits and reading interest of teenagers is probably the most discussed issue among teachers and in media as well in Estonia during last five years. The year 2010 had been announced as reading year in Estonia. Therefore it is not hard to understand the actuality of named issue, especially in the light of 5 Education Benchmarks for Europe defined by the European Commission in the framework of the Lisbon-Strategy. It is hard to find a better timing for the dealing with reading issues, taking into consideration that starting from September 2010 the new National Curriculum came into force in Estonia, where literature is named as separate subject from grade 5 upwards. This leads to a stereotypical conception about reading, which expresses the opinion that: 1) reading (also the skill of reading) mostly refers to reading fiction; 2) our teenagers are bad readers (they don’t read enough literature); 3) especially boys tend to read less and less.Purpose of Study: The above discussed standpoints and participation in the ADORE-project provided the need to organize the research, the goals of which was to find out 1) what kind of texts are authentic for the students, what they read voluntarily, how long time teenagers spend with reading etc. and 2) are there differences between boys and girls in reading habits.Research Methods: The quantitative research method in the form of questionnaire was used, which included 15 open-ended and multiple-choice questions. 140 students participated in the survey.Findings: The results of the research showed that there are differences between boys and girls in many aspects of reading habits and preferences. Boys named themselves mostly as average or poor readers, they read less classical literature voluntarily, they spend less time with reading, they don’t like to read long books and books with small letters etc. In the same time, boys and girls seemed to be rather similar readers by computer.Conclusions: The results of the conducted questionnaire provided the food for thought about broadening the assortment of reading materials for students and for making Estonian language lessons more suitable for every student