时间:2018-12-07 作者:英语课 分类:2012年VOA慢速英语(四)月


英语课

Education Report - How a Small Change in Teaching May Create Better Readers


This is the VOA Special English Education Report.


Teachers and parents usually call attention to the pictures when they read storybooks to preschool children. But a new study suggests that calling attention to the words and letters on the page may lead to better readers.
The two-year study compared children who were read to this way in class with children who were not. Those whose teachers most often discussed the print showed clearly higher skills in reading, spelling and understanding. These results were found one year and even two years later.
Shayne Piasta, an assistant professor of teaching and learning at Ohio State University, was an author of the study. She says most preschool teachers would find this method manageable and would need only a small change in the way they teach. They already read storybooks in class. The only difference would be increased attention to the printed text.
Ms. Piasta says if you get children to pay attention to letters and words, it makes sense that they will do better at word recognition and spelling. But she says research suggests that very few parents and teachers do this in a systematic 1 way.
The report appears in the journal Child Development.
More than three hundred children age four and five were observed in classrooms in Ohio and Virginia. The children came from poor families and were below average in their language skills. This put them at risk for reading problems later.
For thirty weeks, the children took part in a program called Project STAR, for Sit Together And Read. The project is based at Ohio State. It tests the short-term and long-term results of reading regularly to preschool children in their classrooms.
Laura Justice at Ohio State was an investigator 2 for the study. She heads the Preschool Language and Literacy Laboratory. She says one of the areas that interests researchers is known as the "locus 3 of learning."
LAURA JUSTICE: "Where is it that a child learns something? Where is that space? We think we have identified it pretty well in terms of fostering some children’s knowledge about print."
Professor Justice says this knowledge can be gained by having focused discussions when reading a book to a child.
LAURA JUSTICE: "We think we understand how information about print is transmitted from the adult to the child. And we think we have centered on this intervention 4 that really helps adults center in on the things that children need and want to learn."
There are different ways that adults can talk to children about print. They can point to a letter and discuss it, and even trace the shape with a finger. They can point out a word: "This is 'dog.'" They can discuss the meaning of the print or how the words tell the story. And they can talk about the organization of the print -- for instance, showing how words are written left to right in English.
And that’s the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. I'm Bob Doughty 5.

1 systematic
adj.有系统的,有计划的,有方法的
  • The way he works isn't very systematic.他的工作不是很有条理。
  • The teacher made a systematic work of teaching.这个教师进行系统的教学工作。
2 investigator
n.研究者,调查者,审查者
  • He was a special investigator for the FBI.他是联邦调查局的特别调查员。
  • The investigator was able to deduce the crime and find the criminal.调查者能够推出犯罪过程并锁定罪犯。
3 locus
n.中心
  • Barcelona is the locus of Spanish industry.巴塞罗那是西班牙工业中心。
  • Thereafter,the military remained the locus of real power.自此之后,军方一直掌握着实权。
4 intervention
n.介入,干涉,干预
  • The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
  • Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。
5 doughty
adj.勇猛的,坚强的
  • Most of successful men have the characteristics of contumacy and doughty.绝大多数成功人士都有共同的特质:脾气倔强,性格刚强。
  • The doughty old man battled his illness with fierce determination.坚强的老人用巨大毅力与疾病作斗争。
学英语单词
a professional athlete
aaprotect
activity factor of B (in a liquid or a solid mixture)
al-rasheed
alignment time
anti-perfectionists
aporrectodea trapezoides
assembly robot
band-edge tailing
Barrault, Jean-Louis
be ambitious to do sth
beiderman
biophysics of membrane transport
blowout switch
boning room
caponier
Cetiprin
clinical genetics
cold waste
commercial fertilizer
content ratio analyzer
corticoliberin
crushable structure
customer centricity
DB
desktop videoconferencing
druggister
durable good
encander
essien
Ettrickhall
exner comprehensive system
extra heavy duty
genus omphalotuss
geometric mean inequality
group efficiency
hand brake housing
herposiphonieae
high efficiency TWT
highest probable frequency (hpf)
hold sb in high esteem
holeier
homogentisic acids
hot-tubs
instruction mode
iron-clad
Japanophobic
kizdere
kona cyclone
kragen
L, l
lactomucin
latitudinal cleavage
LC-ME
localcalls
lycocernuine
Maastrichtians
malignant auricular arrhythmia
methylphenylamine
micrometer-microscope
nimbiol
Office Francais de Recherche Sous-Marine
ophthalmoreaction
overconsolidated soil
peg-bar
pingees
pogonia macrocarpum broth
Pyeonghae
Qosqo
quadrant-edge orifice plate
radiosonde station
recommend substitutes
Rhizoma Panacis Japonici
rotating particle
roundhand
Saccharum Granorum
Saint James
schlenker
shoddy shaker
sidewheeler
silicon meter
skeezas
small calorie (cal)
softening plant
SP-54
square can
steering wheel angle
sukhoi
sulphur parakeet
the green-eyed monster
the have-nots
thixomolding
to yearn after...
tobacco looper
ultramacho
ultrasonic laparoscope
under authorities
volume color
wind someone round one's fingers
workfree
working-time
ya mean