Book excerpt: Like an increasing number of educators, you recognize that girls and boys approach reading and writing differently, and that boys are lagging behind girls in many assessments of literacy learning. This book does more than describe and explain these differences. It builds on the authors' state of the art research to offer instructional strategies and classroom activities to help both girls and boys develop as readers and writers. This book is for classroom teachers in grades 3 - 8 as well as for reading specialists, instructional leaders and other educators. It provides detailed descriptions of instructional activities, accompanied by reproducible tools and materials; illustrative examples of student work; concise summaries of state-of-the-art research; and ideas for action research projects. The strategies and activities in this book have all been classroom tested with diverse student populations.