(2015·无锡模拟)
Given all the heated debates about how America’s children should be taught, it may come as a surprise to learn that students spend less than 15% of their time in school. While there’s no doubt that school is important, a series of recent studies remind us that parents are even more so. A study, for example, finds that parental involvement—checking homework, attending school meetings and events, discussing school activities at home—has a more powerful influence on students’ academic performance than anything about the school the students attend. Another study reports that the effort put forth by parents has a bigger impact on their children’s educational achievement than the effort devoted by either teachers or the students themselves. And a third study concludes that schools would have to increase their spending by more than $1, 000 per pupil in order to achieve the same results that are gained with parental involvement.
So parents matter a lot—a point made clear by decades of research showing that a major part of the academic advantage held by children from wealthy families comes from the “concerted cultivation(协作培养)of children” as compared to the more laissez-faire style of parenting common in working-class families. But this research also reveals something else: that parents, of all backgrounds, don’t need to buy expensive educational toys or digital devices for their kids in order to give them an edge. They don’t need to chauffeur their offspring to enrichment classes or test-prep courses. What they need to do with their children is much simpler: talk.
But not just any talk. Although well-known research by psychologists Betty Hart and Todd Risley has shown that professional parents talk more to their children than less-affluent parents—a lot more, resulting in a 30 million “word gap” by the time children reach age three—more recent researches are raising our sense of exactly what kinds of talks at home contributed to children’s success at school. For example, a study conducted by researchers at the UCLA School of Public Health and published in the journal Pediatrics found that two-way adult-child conversations were six times as effective in promoting language development as interludes in which the adult did all the talking. Engaging in this reciprocal back-and-forth gives children a chance to try out language for themselves, and also gives them the sense that their thoughts and opinions matter. As they grow older, this feeling helps middle-and upper-class kids develop into confident supporters for their own interests, while working-class students tend to avoid asking for help or arguing their own case with teachers, according to a research presented at American Sociological Association conference earlier this year.
The content of parents’ conversations with kids matters, too. Children who hear talk about counting and numbers at home start school with much more extensive mathematical knowledge, which predicts future achievement in the subject. Psychologist Susan Levine, who led the study on number words, has also found that the amount of talk young children hear about the spatial properties of the physical world—how big or small or round or sharp objects are—predicts kids’ problem-solving abilities as they prepare to enter kindergarten.
While the conversations parents have with their children change as kids grow older, the effect of these exchanges on academic achievement remains strong. And again, the way mothers and fathers talk to their middle-school students makes a difference. Research by Nancy Hill, a professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, finds that parents play an important role in what Hill calls “academic socialization”—setting expectations and making connections between current behavior and future goals(going to college, getting a good job). Engaging in these sorts of conversations, Hill reports, has a greater impact on educational accomplishment than volunteering at a child’s school or going to PTA meetings, or even taking children to libraries and museums. When it comes to promoting students’ success, it seems, it’s not so much what parents do as what they say.
【文章大意】父母的参与对儿童的成长起着至关重要的作用。
5. The first paragraph mainly tells us that ________ .
A. teaching methods are vital to students in the USA
B. schooling is necessary for American studentsC. parents affect their children’s achievement greatly
D. schools have paid more money to get the same results as parental involvement
【解析】选C。主旨大意题。根据文章第一段可知父母对孩子的成就影响很大。
6. From the second paragraph we can know that in the USA ________ .
A. children from rich families may have more academic advantages
B. working-class parents tend to talk to their children more
C. wealthy families tend to adopt laissez-faire style of parenting
D. parents have many ways to give their children an advantage
【解析】选A。细节理解题。根据文章第二段So parents matter a lot—a point made clear by decades of research showing that a major part of the academic advantage held by children from wealthy families comes from the “concerted cultivation of children” as compared to the more laissez-faire style of parenting common in working-class families. 可知。
7. How are the second and third paragraphs developed?
A. By offering explanation.
B. By giving examples.
C. By making comparisons.
D. By providing analysis.
【解析】选C。篇章结构题。由文章第二、三段内容可知用了比较的方法。
8. What can we infer from the last paragraph?
A. It’s necessary for children to follow the example of their parents.
B. Children should be active in their educational accomplishment.
C. Parents should often communicate with the teachers of their children.
D. Parents’ influence stays with children for a long time.
【解析】选D。推理判断题。根据文章最后一段While the conversations parents have with their children change as kids grow older, the effect of these exchanges on academic achievement remains strong. 可知。
【技法导练】
推理判断题解密
推理判断题要在阅读理解整体语篇的基础上把握文章的真正内涵。要做好推理判断题需要:
(1)吃透文章的字面意思, 从字里行间捕捉有用的提示和线索。
(2)对文字的表面信息进行深入挖掘加工, 由表入里, 由浅入深, 从具体到抽象, 从特例到一般, 通过分析、综合、判定等, 进行深层处理, 符合逻辑地推理。
(3)把握句、段之间的逻辑关系, 了解语篇结构。
(4)体会文章的基调, 揣摩作者的态度, 摸准逻辑发展的方向, 悟出作者的弦外之音, 同时避免断章取义与以偏概全。
题号 文章原句 推理分析 答案 8 While the conversations parents have with their children change as kids grow older, the effect of these exchanges on academic achievement remains strong. 父母和孩子对学业交流效果依然很强, 说明父母对孩子影响深远。 D(Parents’ influence stays with children for a long time. )
