Using data from the reading component of the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (N = 113,050), the effects of gender and curricular track for nine sub-scores of reading achievement were investigated. Only students indicating that they did not receive additional programming support were included in the analysis. Gender accounted for less than one per cent of variance in reading achievement. Gender differences for each curricular track were in the close-to-zero and small range. The results suggest that any observed differences may be of little practical consequences, and that the notion of under-achievement of boys' reading achievement has been greatly overstated. (Contains 2 tables, 3 figures and 6 notes.)