When it comes to preschool education, there are two lines of thought. One says that preschoolers need to be taught early academic skills in order to get a leg up on future school achievement. Another says the focus should be on social and emotional development. But, new research from Penn State University says a high quality preschool program should do both.

Karen Bierman, Penn State Professor of Psychology, and her team studied 350 preschoolers. Half were taught the traditional curriculum(课程). The other half were given the basic curriculum as well as social and emotional teaching.

The results show that the half students taught with a curriculum that includes social lesson, such as sharing, listening and self-control, score higher in both the social and academic areas of school readiness than the other half students.

The other finding is that when you work on both academic and social-emotional skills, you get stronger gains in both areas. “You get the combined power when you put both together, so neither area is weakened.” she says.

Clearly, knowing how to share, develop healthy friendships, and learn side-by-side with others is important to a child’s academic achievement in the classroom. But, Bierman says the importance of social and emotional education goes beyond that. Preschool is prime time for the development of self-regulation, which not only tells a child not to hit another child, but also tells a child how to set personal goals and focus himself enough to follow through with those goals. And the ability to regulate behavior is what helps children get motivated at school. “When they get upset, bored, or frustrated, it doesn’t defeat them.” she says.

Goal-oriented (面向目标的) and motivated learning is best taught in preschool, Biernam says, when the prefrontal part of the brain, which controls decision-making, is at the height of development. “First grade teachers can teach letter names, but preschool is when that behavior is peaking and language is just beginning to develop,” she says.

1.Karen Bierman and her team carried out the research by ________.

A. tracking 350 preschoolers for years

B. separating children into two equal groups

C. working out a high quality preschool program

D. analyzing the importance of social and emotional teaching

2.The underlined words “prime time” in the text probably refer to ________.

A.the best timeB.the only time

C.the earliest timeD.the suitable time

3.According to the text, self-regulation can help children ________.

A.be willing to studyB.become emotionless

C.memorize letter namesD.learn language quickly

4.What’s the best title for the text?

A. Preschool learning: more than ABCs and 123s

B. Karen Bierman: freeing kids from boring learning.

C. Learning self-regulation in preschool: why it matters?

D. Academic and social-emotional skills: which is more important?

Doctors say anger can be an extremely damaging emotion, unless you learn how to deal with it. They warn that anger can lead to heart disease, stomach problems, headaches, emotional problems and possibly cancer.

__1.__ Some people express anger openly in a calm reasonable way. Others burst with anger, and scream and yell. But other people keep their anger inside. They can not or will not express it. This is called repressing anger.

For years many doctors thought that repressing anger was more dangerous to a person’s health than expressing it. They said that when a person is angry, the brain releases the same hormones (荷尔蒙). They speed the heart rate, raise blood pressure, or sugar into the blood, etc. __2.___

Some doctors say that both repressing and expressing anger can be dangerous. They believe that those who express anger violently may be more likely to develop heart disease, and they believe that those who keep anger inside may face a greater danger of high blood pressure.

__3.__ They say the first step is to admit that you are angry and to recognize the real cause of the anger, then decide if the cause is serious enough to get angry about. If it is, they say, “__4.___ Wait until your anger has cooled down and you are able to express yourself calmly and reasonably.”

Doctors say that a good way to deal with anger is to find humor in the situation that has made you angry. ___5.__

A. In general the person feels excited and ready to act.

B. They said that laughter is much healthier than anger.

C. Expressing anger violently is more harmful than repressing it.

D. Anger may cause you a cancer.

E. Do not express your anger while angry.

F. Anger is a normal emotion that we all feel from time to time.

G. Doctors say the solution is learning how to deal with anger.

House Sitting

In many countries of the world people do what is called house sitting. It means that if owners of the house are going away, they want someone to come into their home and look after the house and maybe pets while they are away.

In Australia, many people travel. After people retire, they might buy a van and travel all over the country. 1. (many people—retired people—thousands of them)

So if someone wants to travel or go away for some reason, they might want someone in their home to care for it and keep the gardens tidy. House sitters might have to care for pets. Also, quite a few people have swimming pools in their back yards and they need cleaning. 2. I feel it is a great way of seeing the country, because you go and stay in a new city, get to meet new people, and have time to go sightseeing in a new area.

3. There are websites where you find the advertisements by people who want to travel, and by replying to the advertisement, you can make arrangements to go and look after their home.

There are some requirements to be a house sitter. You must be a trusted person, so that the home owner knows you will not steal anything. You must be able to go when the house owner wants you to go, so you need lots of free time. 4. You need to be good with pets, able to care for cats and dogs, or other pets they may have.

Some house sitting jobs are just for a few days or a couple of weeks while the home owner has a short holiday. Sometimes it is for much longer. We have had one house sit for six months, while the home owner travelled to Europe.

5. Then you can travel to many different countries and stay there. One of the important things to get are references from the home owners where you have stayed. A reference is a written letter to say that you are trustworthy and have looked after their home well. You can show these letters to prospective house sitting jobs and they know you will do a good job.

A. I have done house sitting many times.

B. Thousands of people do this all the time.

C. It is also possible to do house sitting in other countries.

D. Generally you have many opportunities to get a house sitting job.

E. You must take a little care over what your description says about you.

F. This is an international house sitting service for all city and country areas.

G. You must have a good car, so you can travel to different parts of the country.

违法和不良信息举报电话:027-86699610 举报邮箱:58377363@163.com

精英家教网