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This paper presents evidence from The W H Smith Children's Reading Choices Project research in order to examine the relationship between achievement in English and the reading habits of 10-to 14-year-old children. Following a national questionnaire survey supplemented by a semi-structured interview for a small sample of respondents, it was found that children read more books and periodicals in 1994 than in 1971. However, boys tended to read less than girls. Periodical reading is a strong feature in the reading diet of both sexes. The paper argues for the importance of recognising and respecting the range of reading children engage in, and the popular reading cultures in which they live. It suggests that officially sanctioned school definitions of literacy disempower many young readers, and inhibit their development as readers. In particular, schools should recognise and value the type of informationrich reading that boys undertake away from school and should provide links between it and the 'socially orientated' reading, preferred by girls, that makes up much of the English school curriculum. Likewise, girls should be encouraged to undertake more technical and factual reading to better prepare them for the world of work. If this advice were adopted, both sexes would benefit and boys might be less inclined to perceive themselves as poor readers. The contextThe underperformance of girls within the school system -in particular their performance in maths and science -was a major concern in education in the United Kingdom, as elsewhere in the world, during the 1970s and 1980s. However, in the 1990s, as girls' performances in these subjects improved to match that of boys (QCA, 1998), the focus shifted to boys and their perceived under-performance across a range of curriculum subjects -but particularly in reading and English -throughout all of the years of compulsory schooling.An official review of research on gender and education performance by OFSTED, the UK government Office for Standards in Education, summarises the situation thus:'The pattern of performance in Reading or English at Key Stage I [5-7 years] in 1995 seems pretty clear-cut. Girls made a better start at learning to read than

This article explores the experiences of non-

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