VIDEO: One Local School Starts An Initiative To Motivate Male Students To Read

ABERDEEN, Miss. (WCBI)-There’s a new initiative in Aberdeen in response to an achievement gap, it’s called “Real Men Read.”

At Belle-Shivers Middle School, leaders have noticed that boys are far behind girls in reading, and their reading levels aren’t where they should be.

“Some of our boys are two to three grade levels below their reading level, and that’s not acceptable,” said Tami Doss, principal at Belle-Shivers Middle School.

So in an effort to change that, Doss invited members from the community to come out and educate the students about the importance of reading, using it as a motivational tool.

“Some of them are good readers, some of them just think reading is not cool, so we’re trying to work on that image that reading is a good thing for you to do,” said Doss.

“I feel that reading is important, because to do anything you’re going to have to know how to read,” said Alonzo Shaw, one of the many concerned parents in the audience.

Shaw said he believes fixing this problem is something that starts at home.

“Well I talk to him all the time about reading,” he said. “When we’re around the house, I’ll get him to read something to me to make sure we’re both on the same page.”

“I like to read novels and sometimes comics,” said Nicholas Shaw, 5th grader at Belle-Shivers Middle School.

Nicholas said he and his father both read everyday.

“Reading is fun to me because I want to be a physical therapist, and you have to read a lot of books to achieve that goal,” he said.

Now, the school is now trying to achieve their goal of boosting everyone’s reading scores to where they need to be.

School leaders said even though they’re not there yet, they’re going to keep pushing each student until that goal is accomplished.

At the end of Thursday’s program, each student was given a book they are now required to read. This is something school leaders are planning to continue, they plan to a literacy night once a month.