Summer vacation in America

四川雙流中學 蔣建平

1.enrichment /?n'r?t?m?nt/ n.豐富； 充實

2.affluent /'?flu?nt/ adj.富裕的

題材322詞 6分鐘暑假 說明文體裁 篇幅 建議用時

難詞探意

June, July and August are exciting vacation months for most American school students.But some young students pay a high price for that long summer break.They may forget much of what theyhave learned over the past year when they start the next grade.This problem is often called the summer learning gap.A growing effort across the country aims to deal with it by offering more interesting summer school programs.Some students choose to attend summer school often because they receive poor grades during the regular school year.

“People need food, clothes, and other goods.” On a recent day, students read out loud about communities in a third-grade social studies class at WW Bushman Elementary in Dallas, Texas.But the children were also studying art.In addition to reading, the students expressed themselves in picture form by drawing community scenes.Their teacher Gloria Pegram has worked in elementary school for fifteen years.She says art helps with memory.Ms Pegram said students who do not take summerenrichmentclasses often need to relearn lessons when they return in the fall.This is especially true of low-income students.They are less likely, for example, to live near public libraries offering both books to read and special summer reading programs.

Ed Pauly is a director of Research and Evaluation at the Wallace Foundation.The non-profit group has invested fifty million dollars to study which programs work best to prevent summer learning loss.He said, “And for poor kids, the loss can be as much as three months of school learning that just disappears over the course of the summer.That's a very significant part of the achievement gap that separates kids from low-income communities from kids from affluent communities.We need kids to master reading and math.The arts get them excited about being there every day.And the arts use reading and math.The arts are a great way to tie together learning experiences.”

Reading Check

1.How do American schools deal with the problem of the summer learning gap?

2.What does Ed Pauly think of the arts?___

Language Study

Sentence for writing

They may forget much of what they have learned over the past year by the time they start the next grade.到他們升入下一年級時，他們可能會忘記過去一年中學到的很多東西。

【信息提取】這是一個主從復合句，句中by the time意為“到……時候(為止)”，是一個介詞短語，引導時間狀語從句。 當表示將來的時間時，主句用將來完成時,而從句用一般現在時來表示將來的動作；當表示過去的時間時，主句用過去完成時,而從句用一般過去時。

【句式仿寫】當尼克給我們打電話時，我們已經出去了。