Boys narrowing literacy proficiency gap, but girls still ahead

Efforts to get more boys reading fiction are paying off. They are catching up on girls in literacy skills.

International reading tests in which Irish fourth-class pupils took part last year have revealed that girls’ scores are still better than boys’, just as they are in 47 of the other 49 countries that took part.

But the gap between them on the Progress in International Reading Literacy (PIRLS) tests is just 12 points, compared to an international average of 19.