One hundred seventy-five third- and fourth-grade boys who were identified as struggling readers participated in a 10-week
intervention to determine the effect of the reading teachers’ sex on boys’ reading performance, self-perceptions as readers,
and view of reading as a masculine, feminine, or gender-neutral activity. Findings indicated no main effects on reading performance,
yet main effects of teacher’s sex on two sub-scales of reader self-perception emerged. Evidence of interactions showed that
boys responded differentially to the intervention—they responded better to female teachers. Further analysis revealed that
the boys’ responses varied as much as a response to individual male teachers as to the teacher’s sex.
Keywords Reading - Male teachers - Gender