Books for all: Selah's literacy journey為所有人提供書籍:西拉的捐書之旅
2024-05-14 00:00:00位春玲
瘋狂英語·愛英語 2024年4期
主題語境：社會公益 篇幅：349詞 篇 建議用時：6分鐘
1 When Selah was five years old， she came homefrom her first day of kindergarten and told herparents that many of her classmates didnt knowhow to read. She then asked her parents to giveaway 20 hundred thousand books. Selah's momNicole Thompson thought that this equaled twomillion books！
2 Her parents began to do their own research after hearing Selahs lofty plans. They foundthat there is a huge amount of illiteracy （文盲） in America. In fact， 85 percent of chil?dren in the juvenile prison system were functionally illiterate， and that two?thirds of stu?dents who cannot read proficiently by the end of the fourth grade will end up in prisonor on welfare.
3 After understanding the need for books and establishing a love for reading， Selah's par?ents were on board. In 2018， they created the nonprofit Empowered Readers LiteracyProject （ERLP）. This organization promotes families to form reading habits so that chil?dren can see books as something positive. More than 2400 kids and their parents par?ticipated in the march for literacy on Martin Luther King， Jr's birthday in the project'sfirst event in the first year. They also run an adventure time readers club and an initia?tive Project 500 to get books into children's hands.
4 “In addition to being exposed to reading， children are not excited about reading whenthey do not see themselves on the pages of the book，” Nicole Thompson said. Shenoticed limited representation of characters of color in kids' literature.“ We are justtrying to do our little part to heal big wounds that the uneducated have，” she said.
5 Selah， along with her younger sister Syrai， wrote a book with the help of their father thatwas published in November， 2019 and that was the beginning of Penelope the PiratePrincess series. The main character Penelope looks like Selah and also loves scienceand space.
6 In two years， the ERLP donated 8000 books， including Selah's own series. Although hergoal of 20 hundred thousand books is still quite far， Selah is on the right track.
Reading
Check
1. How did Selah's parents react to her request for books？
A. They thought little of it.
B. They regarded it as a joke.
C. They thought it impossible.
D. They took it very seriously.
2. What's the main idea of paragraph 2？
A. Illiteracy is the main cause of crime in America.
B. There is a high level of illiteracy among American kids.
C. Selah's parents find it difficult to carry out their research.
D. The majority of American kids drop out of school by grade 4.
3. What's the goal of ERLP？
A. To make more parents love reading.
B. To raise kids' awareness of reading.
C. To get rid of illiteracy among kids entirely.
D. To collect more books for kids in juvenile prisons.
4. What's the problem Nicole Thompson discovered in kids' books？
A. There were very few characters of color.
B. Their covers were not attractive enough.
C. There were less beautiful colors in them.
D. Their plots were not interesting enough.
Language
Study
Ⅰ. Difficult sentence in the text
This organization promotes families to form reading habits so that children can seebooks as something positive. 該組織促使家庭養(yǎng)成閱讀的習(xí)慣，讓孩子們能夠?qū)暈榉e極的東西。
【點石成金】本句是一個復(fù)合句。so that引導(dǎo)的是一個目的狀語從句；positive是形容詞，作不定代詞something的后置定語。
Ⅱ. Text?centered chunks
give away 贈送
on welfare 接受生活救濟
on board 在船上；在飛機上；在火車上
be exposed to 被暴露于……
do one's part 某人盡力而為
heal a wound 愈合創(chuàng)傷
on the right track 步入正軌
