On a summer afternoon, Ciara Whelan, a teacher at a New York, City elementary school, visits one of her students in the Bronx, Sapphira, who fell behind in her reading.
This home visit is the beginning of a reading program called Springboard Collaborative. Springboard runs after-school and summer programs with struggling readers. Once each week, a family member — mom, dad, grandma, an old sibling (兄弟姐妹) — attends an hour-long workshop to help learn and practice the approaches students are learning in class. “Parent engagement (参与) is the beating heart of our programs,” says founder Alejandro Gibes de Gac. “It’s the spirit in the cocktail.”
Sapphira’s Springboard program is held in a classroom at a charter school in Manhattan. In the classroom, Sapphira’s dad, sits with his daughter, helping her mark her place in the book. After a few minutes of reading together, Whelan tells parents to ask students to summarize what is happening every few pages, to check comprehension.
In the past seven years, Springboard has collected a great amount of data to prove its effectiveness. For example: In just five weeks, on average, 3 out of 4 students get to the next reading level or even further. The program also gives books to each child. Backpacks full of school supplies and tablets are offered as encouragement for completing the whole program.
Springboard plans to increase the size by spreading its model, with a goal of reaching 100,000 children in the next four years. Currently it’s running tests in different cities to see which parts of the program are necessary and important and which could be cut if a particular school lacks money for them. For example, the free tablet and backpack, it has found, don’t seem to make much difference in the program’s success. The key instead is the promise that parents make to their children.
【小题1】What do the underlined words “Springboard Collaborative” in Para.2 refer to?| A．A program to involve parents in kids’ reading practice. |
| B．A school where students learn to improve their reading. |
| C．A plan to strengthen the relationship between kids and parents. |
| D．A summer camp that helps struggling students with their reading. |
| A．Teachers’ home visits. |
| B．Parents’ participation. |
| C．Children’s new reading habits. |
| D．Encouragement from the program. |
| A．It is running tests to see whether it is welcome. |
| B．It intends to build a new model and spread it. |
| C．Its effectiveness is proved by a large amount of data. |
| D．Students will be given backpacks once they join in it. |
| A．No Pains, No Gains |
| B．Reading Makes One’s Life Better |
| C．How to Change Children’s Future |
| D．One Hour a Week, a Step Up |
