I have to admit I’m an old-school reader. Put simply, I   _______old books.

Alone in a new city to _______my first daily newspaper job, I was feeling vaguely anxious as I dipped into a used   bookstore to_______my   mind. The   shelves, full of the smell of the past, quickly_______me. One of the occupational hazards (职业病) of journalism, my chosen_______, is a desire to stay on top of the Next Big Thing. With their cracked spines (书脊) and yellowed_______, the titles in the shop usefully pointed me toward the longer view. “No_______to get too worked up over today’s headline,” they seemed to say. “ There is not much _______ under the sun.”

Francis Bacon’s essays are always a ready antidote (解药). “Prosperity (繁荣) is not without many___ and dislikes,” Bacon wrote, and“___ is not without comforts and hopes.” For me, that comfort and hope often come from a second-hand____.

Reading deeply from the   past can be   at   least as______ as   following the day’s   news. Don’t _____     missing out on the___ gossip. All matters of fact, which a man did not___ before, are news to him.

According to a research, the average reading score of students in the USA this year declined in comparison to the previous study last year. The study indicates that there is a significant_________in reading ability levels in grades 7-12. The result confirms what American secondary teachers have been saying, that both high and low achieving students are often unmotivated to read. This_________of motivation has been the major reason for their poor reading ability.

Perhaps it is no surprise to researchers that the decline in reading ability_________American students’ decreasing freedom in choosing reading method and time. One of the best ways to deal with the situation is for teachers to provide time in the academic day for voluntary reading of texts. There may be objections to the use of already_________academic time, but the research indicates that time spent reading in school_________academic performance. Most students who are given   extra reading time in school get higher scores in reading tests. This is true even for the “light” or _________reading of young adult literature.

An argument for providing_________ in the school day for reading practice is the comparison to the necessary practice one needs in order to become skilled at a sport: the increased practice hours increase performance. Even 10 minutes a day of reading can have dramatic effects by simply _________ students to multiple texts. Ten minutes of daily book reading in middle school will increase about 700,000 words of reading each year for a student. And this additional volume of reading can bring huge_________to the students.

Besides, compared with the crowded casual classroom environment, independent reading libraries in school can help students produce a sense of being__________. Students can discover authors, explore topics that__________them, and improve their reading habits.

The research concludes that there are millions of students who do not have the basic reading __________that are needed to locate relevant information or make simple judgement. The effects of underdeveloped reading ability on the student and on the economy of the American society can mean the__________ of billions of dollars in wages and earnings over a lifetime.

Therefore, secondary educators need to guide students to associate reading with enjoyment by offering time and choices. This__________can result in making reading a desired activity and   making students__________to read.

In my class were many children who had had great trouble with reading. I decided to try at all costs to __ them of their fear and dislike of __.

One day in class, I said to to them, “Now I’m going to say something about reading that you have never heard a teacher say before. I would like you to read a lot of books this year, but I want you to read them only for __. I am not going to ask your questions to find out whether you __ books or not, if you understand enough of a book to enjoy it and want to __ reading it, that’s enough for me.”

The children were __ and silent. One girl, who had just come to us from a school where she had had a very __ time, looked at me for a long time after I had __ .Then she said slowly, “Mr. Holt, do you really __       that?” I nodded.

Apparently she decided to __ me. The first book she read was Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas, not a(n) __ book even for most third graders. For a while she read a number of books at this __. Perhaps she was understanding some __ about reading that her teacher had never given her enough time to       __.

During the spring semester, she really __ me, however. One day, in one of our many free periods, she was reading at her desk. I __ what the book was. I said to myself, “It can’t be.” ___ I asked, “Don’t you find parts of it rather difficult?” She answered, “Oh, sure, but I just __ those parts and go on to the next good part”