Unit 4 Learning efficiently

Passage 1Encouraging early reading skills can build a path to a lifelong love of reading and can help your child get a head start in school. While reading to your child is still the most important thing you can do to build reading skills, there are many techniques that can help.Make reading fun. Play games with your child as you read. Many traditional children's games can be adapted to encourage reading skills.While reading or during play, tell your child, "I spy with my little eye, something that begins with the letter "b". Help the child find something on the page or in the room that begins with that letter. For example, ―I see a barn.‖ This can also be used to teach beginning letter sounds.Ｉspy with my little eye something that begins with the sound ―s‖. Help the child find a word that begins with the "s" sound.In this variation on the popular game, instruct the child that, "Simon says, point to something that starts with the letter "n". The child can then find an object in the room or a body part, such as the nose, that starts with the letter presented. This can also be used to teach beginning sounds.Make a game out of rhyming (押韵) words by making up silly words to rhyme with the child's name or favorite toys. This sets the stage for rhyming real words by showing the child the similarities of sounds. As the child masters making up the words, begin rhyming real words to one another.Tips to raise a successful reader:Put books in places where the child plays. If books are easily accessible, children are more likely to pick them up.Let children "read to you" by looking at pictures. Making up stories to go along with illustrations helps children discover how words relate to pictures.Take books along on trips or even short visits to the doctor's office or grocery store.Have children help you shop. Reading grocery lists and looking for specific items helps build vocabulary.1. Which of the following statements is TRUE?A. A good reading habit can help your child do well at school.B. Computer games can be used to help children develop their reading skills.C. When playing a game you should ask your child to find something starting with the letter b instead of c.D. The purpose of the rhyming games is to make preparations for children to write poems.2. Translate the underlined sentence into Chinese.3. What can we conclude from the passage?A. The most important thing a person should do to build reading skills is to make reading fun.B. Children express a preference for stories with pictures.C. Rhyming games should begin with real words instead of words made up.D. Children tend to read books they have easy access to.4. What’s the title of the passage?A. Interest is the best teacher.B. Practice makes perfect.C. Good methods are half done.D. Failure teaches success.5. What are the intended readers of the passage?A. ParentsB. AdolescentsC. EducatorsD. People in generalPassage 2Directions:Read the following text and choose the most suitable heading from A-F for each paragraph.6.Learning to read early has become one of those marks — in parents' minds at least – that their child is smart. In fact, reading early has very little to do with whether a child is successful academically. Research has shown that difficulty with reading is often due not to inferior intelligence but to differences in the development of each individual child. In some cases, there are some developmental problems that can be overcome with proper training.7.Traditionally, American schools teach children at age six, but many schools begin teaching informally in kindergarten and pre-kindergarten. If parents start too early to encourage reading, and a child does not immediately succeed, the parent has a hard time relaxing and letting the child go at his or her own pace.8.Over the years, research has proved that the use of both the ―whole language" method and the "phonic" method works best for a child to master reading. While the whole language approach, which includes reading to children and getting them interested in both the activity of reading and the story they are reading, is helpful, phonics must be taught. Children must be taught that one of the squiggles (弯曲的形状) they see is a "p" and another a "b". Getting the print off the page requires a different ability than being able to understand the meaning of what is written.9.You can start developing the skills needed in reading at a very young age without putting any pressure on children. Besides reading to them, parents can start "ear training" their child by playing rhyme games. This develops the child's ability to recognize different sounds. In reading to children, parents also can point to words as they go, teaching the child that the funny lines on the page are the words you are saying. All this should be a fun activity.10.Once a child is in school, the learning of reading is inevitably (难以避免地) more serious. For children who have some kind of reading difficulty, you must get a professional diagnosis. While the teacher might say the child is merely disinterested but will get over it, disinterest or poor performance in reading can originate from a number of things, some being very specific learning disabilities that can be identified and worked on.But it is very tricky for parents to deal with their own child's learning disabilities.Passage 3If you look for a book as a present for a child, you will be spoiled for choice even in a year when there is no new Harry Patten. J. K Rowling’s wizard is not alone: the past decade has been a harvest for good children’s books, which has set off a large quantity of films and in turn led to increased sales of classics such as The lard of the Rings.Yet despite that, reading is increasingly unpopular among children. According to statistics, in 1997 23% said they didn’t like reading in all. In 2003, 35% did. And around 6% of children leave primary school each year unable to read properly.Maybe the decline is caused by the increasing availability of computes games. Maybe the books boom has affected only the top of the educational pile. Either way, Chancellor Cordon Brown plans to change things for the bottom of the class. In his pre-budget report, he announced the national project of Reading Recovery to help the children struggling most.Reading Recovery is aimed at six year olds, who receive four months of individual daily half-hour classes with a specially trained teacher. An evaluation earlier this year reported that children on the scheme made 20 months’ progress in just one year, whereas similarly weak readers without special help made just five months’ progress, and so ended the year even further below the level expected for their age.International research tends to find that when British children leave primacy school they read well, but read less often for fun than those elsewhere. Reading for fun matters because children who are keen on reading can expect lifelong pleasure and loving books is an excellent indicator of future educational success. According to the OECD, being a regular and enthusiastic reader is of great advantage.1. Which of the following is true of Paragraph 1?A. Man y children’s books have been adapted from films.B. Marry high-quality children’s books hav e been published.C. The sales of classics have led to the popularity of films.D. The sales of presents for children have increased.2. Statistics suggested that _______.A. the number of top students increased with the use of computersB. a decreasing number of children showed interest in readingC. a minority of primacy school children read properlyD. a huge percentage of children read regularly3. What do we know about Reading Recovery?A. An evaluation of it will be made sometime this year.B. Weak readers on the project were the most hardworking.C. It aims to train special teachers to help children with reading.D. Children on the project showed noticeable progress in reading.4. Reading for fun is important because book-loving children _________.A. take greater advantage of the projectB. show the potential to enjoy a long lifeC. are likely to succeed in their education.D. would make excellent future researchers5. The aim of this text would probably be _________.A. to overcome primary school pupils’ reading difficulty.B.to encourage the publication of more children’s booksC. to remind children of the importance of reading for funD. to introduce a way to improve early children reading6. Translate the underlined sentence into Chinese.7. Fill in the blank using no more than 10 words.Passage 4 （建议背诵）The Secrets of Top StudentsThe kids at the top of the class get there by mastering a few basic techniques that others can readily (容易地) learn. These, according to the education experts and students themselves, are the secrets of top student.1. Set Priorities. Top students have no interruptions on study time. Once the books are open or the computer is on, phone calls go unanswered, TV shows unwatched, and snacks ignored. Study is business: business comes before recreation.2. Study anywhere or everywhere. Study times were strictly a matter of personal preference. Some worked late at night when the house was quiet. Others woke early. Still others studied as soon as they came home from school when the work was fresh in their minds. All agreed, however, on the need for consistency.3. Get organized. Don’t waste time looking for a penc il or missing paper. Keep everything right where one could put one’s hands on it. Even students who don’t have a private study area remain organized. A backpack or drawer keeps essential supplies together and cuts down on time wasting searches.4. Learn how to read. The secret of good reading is to be an active reader---one who continually asks questions that lead to a full understanding of the author’s message.5. Schedule your time. Even the best students procrastinate (推迟) sometimes. But when that happens, they face up to it. If you want As, you make sure to hit the deadline.6. Take notes and use them. Reading the text book is important ,but the teacher is going to test you on what he or she emphasized. That’s what you find in your notes.。