In dreaming up the programme Tennis and Literacy for Youth, as a mother, I had hoped to share two of my passions, tennis and reading, with children. Throughout the year, I had advertised for participants at local elementary schools and recruited (招收) volunteers at local high schools. With the help of kind people, I applied for money. I was even able to secure a site for the program.

But on the first day of camp, despite my careful planning, things did not go the way I had hoped. Hector and Adrian exchanged blows with their racquets (球拍). Hector struggled to his feet moments later, covering a bloody nose with one hand. Georgie and Eduardo threw balls at each other. Then during reading time, I raced from joyless child to demanding child, unable to convince even one to open a book. They would rather be watching Nickelodeon at home, Eli told me, than “learning stupid tennis and reading boring books”.

I dragged myself home that afternoon. That evening, I called my volunteers together for a meeting, and redesigned the entire curriculum. We created a good-fellow system, where each volunteer paired with a camper to help him or her during reading time. To emphasize praise and progress, we established weekly prize ceremonies, presenting awards for most improved reading, tennis and behavior.

Then one day, Eli shut the book and asked me, “Can I take this to read it to my mom tonight?” Peering up at her eager face, I couldn’t help myself. I jumped to my feet and wrapped her in a hug, lifting her right off the ground. “It’s all yours!” I said.

Somehow, in the midst of the chaos and the schedule changes and the meetings, these children, in bad mood during reading time, untouched books in their laps, began to find joy in reading a story.

Children who read often have bigger vocabularies and stronger comprehension skills. And a Pew Research survey reported that reading is considered the second most important skill kids need to get ahead. 【小题1】 .

Start Early

Studies show that reading to babies, even before they're born, can boost vocabulary and give them a head start to reading 【小题2】 . Beginning readers, however, need engagement through adorable photos, exciting stories, and rhyming text.

"Read" Videos

When children follow along while a book is read aloud, they're improving spelling skills and comprehension. 【小题3】 . Try this trick by turning on the closed captioning(字幕)on some silly animal music videos.

Game it Up

Got a reluctant reader in your house? Make reading and writing fun with our silly story generator and word games. Then reward their efforts with printable door hangers, trading cards, and bookmarks.

Find Fun Facts

Whether your children are into space, animals, science, or dinosaurs, they probably love learning and sharing strange facts. You needn't care about the theme. 【小题4】 . Kids have so much fun, even though they don't know they're also practicing reading skills.

Read Together

【小题5】 . For instance, start a family book club and take turns choosing what to read. Advanced readers can help the younger ones, and everyone can take part in the conversation.

Birds do it. People do it. Owls do it in the daytime. Even Caenorhabditis elegans, a primitive roundworm made up of a few thousand cells, does something that looks an awful lot like it. Sleep is an ancient, universal experience.

But partly because it is so commonplace, for a long time sleep was a subject that scientists had not woken up to. It is only in the past half-century or so that it has attracted the attention of dedicated researchers. A new book from Kenneth Miller, a science journalist, sets out to elaborate the field’s short but fascinating history. The book is organized around the life and hard work of a scientist named Nathaniel Kleitman who set up a pioneering sleep-research programme at the University of Chicago.

The early pages of the book, before there is much in the way of established science to describe, are the weakest. A good deal of time is spent on biographical details and pen portraits of the world through which Kleitman moved. But the story soon picks up. It ranges from the discovery of rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep and circadian rhythms — the biological clocks that govern humanity’s days — to the effects of sleep deprivation (which can be fatal, at least in lab animals). It also probes the purpose, if any, of dreams.

Underlying it all is a sense of psychology's slow maturing as a science. New technologies such as electroencephalographs, which monitor electrical activity in the brain, have offered practitioners the ability to study brains directly, rather than trying to infer what they are doing from the behaviour of their owners.

Discoveries often lead to new questions in turn. That is why neat, tidy endings are hard to achieve in science books; this one is no difference. Despite all the progress of the past 50 years, scientists are still unsure what sleep is for. For anyone curious about asking the right questions, however, Mr. Miller’s book is a good place to start.