Summer vacation in America

四川双流中学 蒋建平

1.enrichment /ɪn'rɪtʃmənt/ n.丰富； 充实

2.affluent /'æfluənt/ adj.富裕的

题材322词 6分钟暑假 说明文体裁 篇幅 建议用时

难词探意

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.到他们升入下一年级时，他们可能会忘记过去一年中学到的很多东西。

【信息提取】这是一个主从复合句，句中by the time意为“到……时候(为止)”，是一个介词短语，引导时间状语从句。 当表示将来的时间时，主句用将来完成时,而从句用一般现在时来表示将来的动作；当表示过去的时间时，主句用过去完成时,而从句用一般过去时。

【句式仿写】当尼克给我们打电话时，我们已经出去了。