English 中文网 漫画网 爱新闻iNews 翻译论坛
中国网站品牌栏目(频道)
当前位置: Language Tips > Special Speed News VOA慢速

Using art to make summer school more interesting

[ 2012-09-03 13:38] 来源:中国日报网     字号 [] [] []  
免费订阅30天China Daily双语新闻手机报:移动用户编辑短信CD至106580009009

Get Flash Player

Download

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

June, July and August are vacation months for most American school children. But some young students pay a high price for that long summer break. They may forget much of what they learned over the past year by the time 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 already attend summer school, but often because they received poor grades during the regular school year.

STUDENT: "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 Bushman Elementary in Dallas, Texas. But the nine- and ten-year-olds were also studying art. Visual arts instructor Ron Oliver works to combine the two subjects.

RON OLIVER: "The kids that never get it -- like the thirty percent that always struggle on testing -- they thrive in this kind of atmosphere. Sometimes they just learn differently."

In addition to reading, the students expressed themselves in picture form by drawing community scenes.

BOY: "When I was drawing, I was expressing my feelings and showing what was happening."

GIRL: "You only use the pictures, and you use it to tell the people, the pictures telling the words for you. You don’t need words."

Their teacher Gloria Pegram has taught elementary school for fifteen years. She says art helps with memory.

GLORIA PEGRAM: "Even with math, we try to be creative with it -- it helps their retention. They remember. They say, 'Oh, yes, I remember this because ... ' and they’ll go into what we were doing, hands-on, whatever activity we were doing, to help them understand it better, and to retain it."

Ms. Pegram says students who do not take summer enrichment classes 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 director of research and evaluation at the Wallace Foundation. The nonprofit group has invested fifty million dollars to study which programs work best to prevent summer learning loss.

ED PAULY: "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 more affluent communities."

He says one promising approach has been to include art.

ED PAULY: "We need kids to master reading and math. Arts gets 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."

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report. I'm Christopher Cruise.

相关阅读

How parents can try to prevent dating abuse(视频)

American pediatrics group cites benefits of male circumcision(视频)

Scandals and mistakes influence US political campaigns(视频)

New laws needed to deal with users' digital legacies(视频)

(来源:VOA 编辑:Julie)

 
中国日报网英语点津版权说明:凡注明来源为“中国日报网英语点津:XXX(署名)”的原创作品,除与中国日报网签署英语点津内容授权协议的网站外,其他任何网站或单位未经允许不得非法盗链、转载和使用,违者必究。如需使用,请与010-84883631联系;凡本网注明“来源:XXX(非英语点津)”的作品,均转载自其它媒体,目的在于传播更多信息,其他媒体如需转载,请与稿件来源方联系,如产生任何问题与本网无关;本网所发布的歌曲、电影片段,版权归原作者所有,仅供学习与研究,如果侵权,请提供版权证明,以便尽快删除。
 

关注和订阅

人气排行

翻译服务

中国日报网翻译工作室

我们提供:媒体、文化、财经法律等专业领域的中英互译服务
电话:010-84883468
邮件:translate@chinadaily.com.cn