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Early Childhood Education
New Zealand’s National Party spokesman on education, Dr Lockwood Smith,
recently visited the US and Britain. Here he reports on the findings of his trip
and what they could mean for New Zealand’s education policy
A
‘Education To Be More’ was published last August. It was the report of the New Zealand Government’s Early Childhood Care and Education Working Group. The report argued for enhanced equity of access and better funding for childcare and early childhood education institutions. Unquestionably, that’s a real need; but since parents don’t normally send children to pre-schools until the age of three, are we missing out on the most important years of all?
B
A 13-year study of early childhood development at Harvard University has shown that, by the age of three, most children have the potential to understand about 1000 words — most of the language they will use in ordinary conversation for the rest of their lives.
Furthermore, research has shown that while every child is born with a natural curiosity, it can be suppressed dramatically during the second and third years of life. Researchers claim that the human personality is formed during the first two years of life, and during the first three years children learn the basic skills they will use in all their later learning both at home and at school. Once over the age of three, children continue to expand on existing knowledge of the world.
C
It is generally acknowledged that young people from poorer socio-economic backgrounds tend to do less well in our education system. That’s observed not just in New Zealand, but also in Australia, Britain and America. In an attempt to overcome that educational under-achievement, a nationwide programme called ‘Headstart’ was launched in the United States in 1965. A lot of money was poured into it. It took children into pre-school institutions at the age of three and was supposed to help the children of poorer families succeed in school.
Despite substantial funding, results have been disappointing. It is thought that there are two explanations for this. First, the programme began too late. Many children who entered it at the age of three were already behind their peers in language and measurable intelligence. Second, the parents were not involved. At the end of each day, ‘Headstart’ children returned to the same disadvantaged home environment.
D
As a result of the growing research evidence of the importance of the first three years of a child’s life and the disappointing results from ‘Headstart’, a pilot programme was launched in Missouri in the US that focused on parents as the child’s first teachers. The ‘Missouri’ programme was predicated on research showing that working with the family, rather than bypassing the parents, is the most effective way of helping children get off to the best possible start in life. The four-year pilot study included 380 families who were about to have their first child and who represented a cross-section of socio-economic status, age and family configurations. They included single-parent and two-parent families, families in which both parents worked, and families with either the mother or father at home.
The programme involved trained parent — educators visiting the parents’ home and working with the parent, or parents, and the child. Information on child development, and guidance on things to look for and expect as the child grows were provided, plus guidance in fostering the child’s intellectual, language, social and motor-skill development. Periodic check-ups of the child’s educational and sensory development (hearing and vision) were made to detect possible handicaps that interfere with growth and development. Medical problems were referred to professionals.
Parent-educators made personal visits to homes and monthly group meetings were held with other new parents to share experience and discuss topics of interest. Parent resource centres, located in school buildings, offered learning materials for families and facilitators for child care.
E
At the age of three, the children who had been involved in the ‘Missouri’ programme were evaluated alongside a cross-section of children selected from the same range of socio-economic backgrounds and family situations, and also a random sample of children that age. The results were phenomenal. By the age of three, the children in the programme were significantly more advanced in language development than their peers, had made greater strides in problem solving and other intellectual skills, and were further along in social development. In fact, the average child on the programme was performing at the level of the top 15 to 20 per cent of their peers in such things as auditory comprehension, verbal ability and language ability.
Most important of all, the traditional measures of ‘risk’, such as parents’ age and education, or whether they were a single parent, bore little or no relationship to the measures of achievement and language development. Children in the programme performed equally well regardless of socio-economic disadvantages. Child abuse was virtually eliminated. The one factor that was found to affect the child’s development was family stress leading to a poor quality of parent-child interaction. That interaction was not necessarily bad in poorer families.
F
These research findings are exciting. There is growing evidence in New Zealand that children from poorer socio-economic backgrounds are arriving at school less well developed and that our school system tends to perpetuate that disadvantage. The initiative outlined above could break that cycle of disadvantage. The concept of working with parents in their homes, or at their place of work, contrasts quite markedly with the report of the Early Childhood Care and Education Working Group. Their focus is on getting children and mothers access to childcare and institutionalized early childhood education. Education from the age of three to five is undoubtedly vital, but without a similar focus on parent education and on the vital importance of the first three years, some evidence indicates that it will not be enough to overcome educational inequity.
Questions 1-4
Reading Passage 1 has six sections, A-F.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-F in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.
1 details of the range of family types involved in an education programme
2 reasons why a child’s early years are so important
3 reasons why an education programme failed
4 a description of the positive outcomes of an education programme
Questions 5-10
Classify the following features as characterising
A the ‘Headstart’ programme
B the ‘Missouri’ programme
C both the ‘Headstart’ and the ‘Missouri’ programmes
D neither the ‘Headstart’ nor the ‘Missouri’ programme
Write the correct letter A, B, C or D in boxes 5-10 on your answer sheet.
5 was administered to a variety of poor and wealthy families
6 continued with follow-up assistance in elementary schools
7 did not succeed in its aim
8 supplied many forms of support and training to parents
9 received insufficient funding
10 was designed to improve pre-schoolers’ educational development
Questions 11-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
11 Most ‘Missouri’ programme three-year-olds scored highly in areas such as listening speaking, reasoning and interacting with others.
12 ‘Missouri’ programme children of young, uneducated, single parents scored less highly on the tests.
13 The richer families in the ‘Missouri’ programme had higher stress levels.
Question 1
答案: D
關(guān)鍵詞:details / the range of / family types /an education programme
定位原文: D段第3句”The four-year pilot study included…”
解題思路: 定位句對(duì)應(yīng)題干上的the range of family。接下來(lái)作者詳細(xì)地描述了這些家庭的狀況:They included single-parent and two-parent families, families in which both parents worked,and families with either the mother or father at home.正好可以對(duì)應(yīng)題干上的details一詞。注意:盡管E段也提到了家庭,但是其論述重點(diǎn)已經(jīng)不在干表明家庭的多樣性,故不選。
Question 2
答案:B
關(guān)鍵詞:reasons /early years / important
定位原文: B段內(nèi)容
解題思路: 在這一部分怍者從兩方面論述了早教為什么重要,盡管本段并沒(méi)有直接說(shuō)出reason這個(gè)詞,但是我們足以總結(jié)出早期教育對(duì)兒童十分重要。答案是B
Question 3
答案: C
關(guān)鍵詞:reasons / failed
定位原文: C段第2小段
解題思路: 這一部分直接闡述了explanations,所以對(duì)應(yīng)題目。
Question 4
答案:E
關(guān)鍵詞:description / positive outcomes
定位原文: E段第1小段內(nèi)容
解題思路: programme were evaluated... The results were phenomenal...這些都對(duì)應(yīng)了題目的總結(jié)。
Question 5
答案:B
關(guān)鍵詞:poor/ wealthy
定位原文: D段第3句“The four-year pilot study included…”
解題思路: 其中a cross-section of socio-economic status 就證明該項(xiàng)目包含了 不同經(jīng)濟(jì)狀況的家庭。而這一點(diǎn)在Headstart計(jì)劃中并未提到。
Question 6
答案:D
關(guān)鍵詞:follow-up/ elementary schools
定位原文: C、D、E段
解題思路: 題干:哪個(gè)項(xiàng)目包括在小學(xué)中提供后續(xù)幫助?結(jié)果是:兩個(gè)頊目都沒(méi)有提到這一點(diǎn)。所以答案選D。
Question 7
答案: A
關(guān)鍵詞:did not succeed
定位原文: C段第2小段
解題思路: 定位句得知屬于Headstart 項(xiàng)目。
Question 8
答案: B
關(guān)鍵詞:support and training / parents
定位原文: D段第2小段
解題思路: 定位句得知屬于Missouri項(xiàng)目。
Question 9
答案:D
關(guān)鍵詞:insufficient funding
定位原文: C段第2小段
解題思路: C 段:Despite substantial funding...這句話證明Headstart計(jì)劃資金充足。而關(guān)干密蘇里計(jì)劃,作者根本就沒(méi)有提到資金的問(wèn)題。所以這道題目只能選D。
Question 10
答案:C
關(guān)鍵詞:pre-schoolers
定位原文: C段第1小段第3句;D段第1小段第1句
解題思路: C段定位句證明Headstart計(jì)劃的目的正是為了促進(jìn)兒童的教育;D段定位句證明密蘇里計(jì)劃是為了彌補(bǔ)Headstart計(jì)劃的不足而產(chǎn)生的新計(jì)劃,所以目標(biāo)也是為了提升兒童的教育。所以答案選C。
Question 11
答案:TRUE
關(guān)鍵詞:Missouri
定位原文: E段第1小段
解題思路: listening 等同于文中auditory comprehension;speaking 等同于文中verbal ability and language ability;reasoning 等同于文中problem solving;interacting 等同于文中social development。
Question 12
答案: FALSE
關(guān)鍵詞:Missouri / young / uneducated / single
定位原文: E段第2小段第1句
解題思路: 定位句這句話明確表明家長(zhǎng)的年齡,教育背景,或是否是單親家庭,對(duì)孩子的成績(jī)和語(yǔ)言發(fā)展都沒(méi)有太太的影響。
Question 13
答案: NOT GIVEN
關(guān)鍵詞:richer
定位原文: D段和E段
解題思路:如果回到文章通讀密蘇里計(jì)劃所在的D段和E段,我們會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)作者根本沒(méi)有提到富裕家庭所面臨的壓力問(wèn)題。作者只在E段末句提到人們發(fā)現(xiàn)的惟一一個(gè)會(huì)影響孩子發(fā)展的因素就是由于家庭壓力所導(dǎo)致的親子交流質(zhì)量不佳。而這種交流在較為貧困的家庭倒不一定差。但是從這句話我們也無(wú)法推知富裕家庭的壓力是否更大。
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