Now, it’s time for some brief news items.

Teens Go Online

Some 13 million European children under 18 use the Internet for schoolwork, games and music according to research done by Nielsen’s “Net-rating”. The study covered Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Experts advised parents to limit the time their kids spend on line and keep them away from chat rooms.

Chat to the magic Mum

British author J. K. Rowling, mother of magic boy Harry Potter, will do an Internet interview about her new book “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” on June 26. Before the event, children are invited to send their questions about Harry to the website. The book will hit stores in the US and UK on June 21 and will arrive in China in August.

School Soldiers

Russian school students will have to do basic military training in their final year of school, the government has decided. The lesson will include learning to fire guns, marching drills and how to deal with a chemical, nuclear or biological attack. The activity is seen as part of a drive toward the education of their love for their country.

Is it hard for you to get up early and get ready for classes? Some students at Winter Park High School just roll out of bed in their pajamas (睡衣) and go to class in their own bedrooms, Of course, their teachers and classmates do not see them because all their class work is on the computer. The Florida High School, the state’s only online school, has 250 students who are taking classes at home by computer. Students in this first online program take classes in algebra (代数), American government, chemistry, computer, economics, and web-page design. They also have to go to regular school to attend other classes.

1.In the first news item, which country is NOT covered in the research?

A. Britain.                    B. France.          C. Sweden.                           D. Spain.

2.What is the second news item mainly about?

A. J. K. Rowling will have an Internet interview.

B. Children will meet Harry Potter’s mother.

C. The Harry Potter book will be available on the Internet.

D. The Harry Potter book will arrive in China in early June.

3.Why will Russian school students have basic military training?

A. To get ready for a military parade.

B. To learn to protect themselves.

C. To gain some military knowledge.

D. To develop their love for the country.

4.The news from Florida can be given a title “____________”.

A. Get up Late            B. Online School         C. Magical Computers            D. No Teachers  

Is language, like food, a basic human need? Judging from the extreme experiment of Frederick in the 13th century, it may be. Hoping to discover what language a child would speak if he heard no mother tongue he told the nurses to keep silent.

All the babies died before the first year. But clearly there was more than language deprivation (剥夺，丧失). What was missing was good mothering. Without good mothering, in the first year of life especially, the ability to survive is seriously affected.

Today no such extreme deprivation exists as that ordered by Frederick. Nevertheless, some children are still backward in speaking. Most often the reason for this is that the mother is insensitive to signals of the baby, whose brain is programmed, to mop up language rapidly. There are critical times, it seems when children learn more rapidly. If these sensitive periods are neglected, the ideal time for acquiring skills passes and they might never be learned so easily again.

Linguists suggest that speech milestones are reached in a fixed order and at a constant age, but there are cases where speech has started late in a child who eventually turns out to be of high IQ.

Recent evidence suggests that a baby is born with the ability to speak. What is special about man’s brain, compared with that of the monkey, is the complex system which enables a child to connect the sight and feel of, say, a teddy bear with the sound pattern “teddy bear”.

But speech has to be developed, and this depends on interaction between the mother and the child, where the mother recognizes the signals in the child’s babbling, clinging, grasping, crying, smiling, and responds to them. Insensitivity of the mother to these signals reduces the interaction because the child gets discouraged and sends out only the obvious signals. Sensitivity to the child’s nonverbal (非语言的) signals is basic to the growth and development of language.

1.Frederick’s experiment was extreme because _________.

A．he wanted to prove children are born with ability to speak

B．he wanted his nurses to say another language

C．he was unkind to the nurses

D．he ignored the importance of mothering to the babies

2.The reason that some children are backward in speaking is most likely that _________.

A．they do not listen carefully to their mothers

B．their mothers do not respond to their attempts to speak

C．their brain has to absorb too much language at once

D．their mothers are not intelligent enough to help them

3.In paragraph 3, by “critical times” the author means _________.

A．difficult periods in the child’s life

B．moments when the child becomes critical towards its mother

C．important stages in the child’s development

D．times when mothers often neglect their children

4.If a child starts to speak later than others, he will _________ in future.

A．have a high IQ                          B．be less intelligent

C．not necessarily be backward               D．be insensitive to verbal signals

5.If the mother seldom responds to her child’s signals, _________.

A．the child will be able to speak properly

B．the child will continue to give out signals

C．the child will invent a language of own

D．the child will make little effort to speak

In recent years, the world has made progress in reducing deaths among children under the age of five. A new report says an estimated 6.9 million children worldwide died before their fifth birthday. That compares to about twelve million in1990.
The report says child mortality rates have fallen in all areas. It says the number of deaths is down by at least 50 percent in eastern, western and southeastern Asia. The number also fell in North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Ties Boerma is head of the WHO’s Department of Health Statistics and Informatics. He says most child deaths happen in just a few areas.
TIES BOERMA: “Sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia face the greatest challenges in child survival. More than eighty percent of child deaths in the world occur in these two regions. About half of child deaths occur in just five countries—India, which actually takes twenty-four percent of the global total; Nigeria, eleven percent; the Democratic Republic of Congo, seven percent; Pakistan, five percent and China, four percent of under-five deaths in the world.”
Ties Boerma notes that, in developed countries, one child in one hundred fifty-two dies before his or her fifth birthday. But south of the Sahara Desert, one out of nine children dies before the age of five. In Asia, the mortality rate is one in sixteen.  
The report lists the top five causes of death among children under five worldwide. They are pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and problems both before and during birth.
Tessa Wardlaw is with the U-N Children’s Fund. She is pleased with the progress being made in Sub-Saharan Africa. The area has the highest under-five mortality rate in the world. But she says the rate of decline in child deaths has more than doubled in Africa.
TESSA WARDLAW: “We welcome the widespread progress in child survival, but we importantly want to stress that there’s a lot of work that remains to be done. There’s unfinished business and the fact is that today on average, around nineteen thousand children are still dying every day from largely preventable causes.”
The World Health Organization says one way to solve these problems is to make sure health care services are available to women. In this way, medical problems can be avoided or treated when identified.
【小题1】Since 1990, the number of the children who died before 5 in the world has dropped by about__________.

Encouraging early reading skills can build a path to a lifelong love of reading and can help your child get a head start in school. While reading to your child is still the most important thing you can do to build reading skills, there are many techniques that can help.

Make reading fun. Play games with your child as you read. Many traditional children's games can be adapted to encourage reading skills.

While reading or during play, tell your child, "I spy with my little eye, something that begins with the letter "b". Help the child find something on the page or in the room that begins with that letter. For example, “I see a barn.” This can also be used to teach beginning letter sounds.Ｉspy with my little eye something that begins with the sound “s”. Help the child find a word that begins with the "s" sound.

In this variation on the popular game, instruct the child that, "Simon says, point to something that starts with the letter "n". The child can then find an object in the room or a body part, such as the nose, that starts with the letter presented. This can also be used to teach beginning sounds.

Make a game out of rhyming (押韵) words by making up silly words to rhyme with the child's name or favorite toys. This sets the stage for rhyming real words by showing the child the similarities of sounds. As the child masters making up the words, begin rhyming real words to one another.

Tips to raise a successful reader:

Put books in places where the child plays. If books are easily accessible, children are more likely to pick them up.

Let children "read to you" by looking at pictures. Making up stories to go along with illustrations helps children discover how words relate to pictures.

Take books along on trips or even short visits to the doctor's office or grocery store.

Have children help you shop. Reading grocery lists and looking for specific items helps build vocabulary.

1. Which of the following statements is TRUE?

A. A good reading habit can benefit your child at school.

B. Computer games help children develop reading skills.

C. You should be careful as for what books to read.

D. Children enjoy reading poems to their parents.

2.What does the underlined word “accessible” most probably mean?

A. available            B. beneficial             C. readable        D. worthwhile

3.What can we conclude from the text?

A. The most important thing is to make reading funny.

B. Children have a preference for stories with pictures.

C. Rhyming games should begin only with real words.

D. Children tend to read more if books are at hand.

4.Which of the following can be the best title of the text?

A. Interest is the best teacher

B. Practice makes perfect

C. Good methods are half done

D. Failure teaches success

5.What are the intended readers of the text?

A. Parents.      B. Adolescents.     C. Educators.     D. People in general.  

It seems hard to watch someone yawn and not to yawn ourselves. Even reading about yawning can make you do it. Now, a new study has found why yawning has such a powerful force.

Yawning when others yawn, the study suggests, is a sign of pity and a form of social connection. Kids don’t develop this deeply rooted behavior until around age four, the study found. Kids with autism (自闭症) are less likely to catch yawns. In the most serious cases, they never do. Yawning might help doctors to see whether the children are developing rightly. The work could also lead to a better understanding of the ways that people communicate and connect.

"Emotional infection seems to be a born thing that connects us together," said Molly Helt, a graduate student in psychology at the University of Connecticut. "Yawning may be part of that." Inspiration for her study came when she tried to get her own autistic son to clear his ears on an airplane. She repeatedly yawned at him, hoping he would yawn back. He never did.

"The fact that autistic kids don’t do it might mean they’re really missing out on that emotional connection with people around them," she said. "The biggest thing people try to figure out after birth is how we become humans and understand that humans have minds that are different from others’," she added. "Autistic people never seem to understand that."

Like infectious laughter and crying, scientists have found that yawning is a shared experience that promotes social connection. Helt said it could fight stress after a period of being nervous and spread a feeling of calm through a group.

1.What does the new study suggest, according to the first two paragraphs?

A．It is easy to stop yawning when you see others yawn.

B．Yawning has some mysterious force which is related to God.

C．Children follow others in yawning just after they are born.

D．Yawning is a form of communication.

2.According to Molly Helt, _________________.

A．emotions are infectious, but yawning is not

B．yawning helps clear ears on planes

C．humans differ from animals because they communicate with others

D．yawning is a kind of emotional connection among humans

3.Which of the following is NOT true about yawning?

A．It is natural to yawn back if people around you yawn.

B．Some kids are too young to yawn after others.

C．Yawning can be used to test children’s development.

D．Kids with autism yawn easily when others yawn.

4.The author implies in the last paragraph that ________.

A．it is bad manners to yawn on some social occasions

B．yawning can make people feel relaxed

C．yawning is different from infectious laughter and crying in theory

D．the more you yawn, the happier you will be