It is hard to think of a teaching and learning strategy that one would use with boys. We all know that boys seem to like more active approaches, but so would many girls. When I analyse the research evidence it seems to me to conceal more than it reveals. So I am thrown back on my own experience of working in infant classrooms with teachers for nearly twenty years. In that time I have found perhaps six or seven examples when I really saw the learning of junior boys accelerate because a particular strategy was chosen. None of them are earth shattering and they now seem quite small fry. I offer them, nonetheless, because I have seen them work.
Some ideas to get you thinking
1. Engage boys early in the lesson. Get them doing something active. It could be showing them a big picture and asking them to work with a friend to see who can find 5 particular features in the image. This might start a lesson on Victorian towns.
2. Make the lessons visual. The old adage of a picture being worth a thousand words is nowhere more true than with junior-age boys.
3. Always think
