While there has been talk about a gender gap between male and female students' performance in certain subjects, some educators may not be aware of the gap for students who are at a young age.

According to researchers from the University of Illinois, boys in younger grades continue to get better grades than girls in math, while the girls outpace the boys in reading test scores.

The study noted that the exception to this rule is kindergarteners who are in the 99th percentile. However, when they start out, children of both sexes are on the same playing field when it comes to math and reading scores. It's not until they go into elementary school that the gender gap starts to appear.

"If you just look at the average gap, there is no gap in math between boys and girls when they start kindergarten," study co-author Joseph P. Robinson said. "But when you start to break it down throughout the distribution, taking a look at the low- and high-achieving girls and boys, that's where we see that there's a gap favoring boys at the upper-most extreme of the distribution."