NATIONAL POST	BACK TO MEDIA COVERAGE
	Wednesday, May 28, 2003 By Heather Sokoloff
	Almost half of Canada's 16-year-old boys write so poorly that their answers to a national writing test were barely comprehensible.
	Boys are catching up to girls on a national writing test, but almost half of the country's 16-year-old boys write with so many errors their answers are barely comprehensible. Girls scored 10 to 16 percentage points higher than boys in the evaluation of 24,000 students aged 13 and 16. When the test was administered in 1998, boys' scores lagged by 25 to 30 points ''That is still an enormous gap,'' said Dr. Paul Cappon, director-general of the Council of Ministers of Education Canada, the national body representing provincial education ministers that administered the test. "We have got to do better. ''Among 16-year-olds, 69% of girls met test-makers' expectations, versus 53% of boys. Among 13-year-olds, 88.5% of girls met expectations, versus 78% of boys. The gender gap was as pronounced in Quebec, the top-performing province, as in Saskatchewan and Atlantic Canada, the areas with the poorest results. Dr. Cappon said three-quarters of students who wrote the test indicated they want to go to university or college. ''Boys are not going to get into university, or complete post-secondary education, with that level of writing ability.'' The 16-year-old boys who failed to meet expectations did not attain a level of writing where ''errors do not interfere with communication,'' according to test-makers. Their writing also did not convey a clear perspective, develop a straightforward point or control conventional stylistic features. However, Dr. Cappon acknowledged that despite the disparity, the boys' scores did inch up from previous national and international assessments of literacy. The improvement is probably due to the test's new ''boy-friendly'' format that asked students to read about coyotes, snakes and train collisions and required them to write newspaper-style articles instead of open-ended personal narratives. Students were given a package of environment-themed readings titled Shared Living Spaces. Included was a table listing the number of species at risk in Canada, a poem about a moose and an article about Alberta elk being hit by trains. For years, standardized tests have shown a growing chasm in academic achievement between girls and boys. International tests of reading from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, released two years ago, showed girls significantly outscored boys in 32 countries. Canada scored second in the world, buoyed by a spectacular performance by the country's girls, while boys in many provinces hovered around the international average. Yet despite the glaring disparity -- as well as calls from Dr. Cappon that boys' literacy problems be addressed with the same urgency as girls' underperformance in math and science has been for two decades -- government officials have done little to change curriculum or evaluation methods to counter boys' weaknesses. Last month, New Brunswick, a province that traditionally performs poorly on national assessments, became the first Canadian jurisdiction to single out male elementary students as a disadvantaged group requiring additional attention, along with aboriginal students. A handful of high schools in Quebec are experimenting with single-sex classes, putting girls and boys on different sides of the same school. In Ontario, Hamilton's public school board will open the district's first single-sex junior-high program next fall. Durham's school board, east of Toronto, uses the Oshawa Generals junior hockey team as literacy advocates. Teachers also try to give little boys more frequent breaks and hands-on activities to sustain their interest. Such practices are bolstered by recent research that says it is a myth that boys do not read or write -- rather, traditional standardized tests might be inappropriate ways to measure boys' literacy skills. However, Edmonton's public school board, considered among the most innovative in the country, decided against starting an all-boys program two years ago, even though the district is home to a popular all-girls school. Shelly Peterson, a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, said boys do not like to follow directions and their writing often does not conform to the detail-oriented styles traditionally preferred by test-makers. ''I'm not sure that we have tapped into the North American ideal of what it means to be a boy in our writing instruction,'' she said. Kathy Sandford, a professor of education at the University of Victoria, has even suggested teachers allow boys to bring Pokémon trading cards into the classroom, let them go on Internet chat rooms and encourage them to relate school texts to television shows such as The Simpsons as a way of getting them more interested in traditional classroom reading materials. Dianne Cunningham, chairwoman of the education ministers' council and Ontario's Minister of Higher Education, said provincial governments should consider the new results very seriously. ''This is a very significant finding. We must do better.'' She added one of the most important things parents can do to help their children is read to them at home. hsokoloff@nationalpost.com © Copyright 2003 National Post