Researchers from Oxford, Cardiff and London universities, who measured the attainments of more than 2,000 children at the ages of three and five, found that their mothers' education is important in accounting for differences between children. But what the mother did with the child was even more important. Those who talked frequently to their children, who played games with numbers and letters, read to them, took them to the library and taught them songs and nursery rhymes had a significant effect on their attainment both at the ages of three and five. Professor Pam Sammons, of London University's Institute of Education, said:"Children's progress is not completely determined by social disadvantage. What parents do with children is critically important. Parents who have no educational qualifications can still do many things to help their children. We need to encourage parents, particularly younger ones, to play with children and to talk to them."
Sammons said the findings emphasized the importance of policies for supporting families of under-threes, for example the government's Sure Start programme. MPs on the Select Committee for Education are investigating early years education. Ministers have provided a nursery, playgroup or school place for every four-year-old, but critics say that too many children are now in school reception classes, which are not equipped for them. There are more staff workers for each child in nurseries than in reception classes. The researchers, comparing children's achievements in math and literacy, found that playgroups and private day nurseries tended to do much less well than nursery schools, which combined education, day care and reception classes.
This research is consistent with previous studies that show the benefit of mother play in other areas such as in a child's creativity and social development using other devices such as music and toys. Music helps children connect the outer world of movement and sound with the inner world of feelings and observations. Children learn music the same way they learn language — by listening and imitating. Finger play promotes language development, motor skills and coordination, as well as self-esteem. Young children are proud when they sing a song and can do the accompanying finger movements. Listening to music also teaches important pre-reading skills. As youngsters use small drums or other percussion instruments (homemade or store-bought), they can play the rhythmic pattern of words.
Babies become social beings through watching their parents, and through interacting with them and the rest of the family and later with others. It is a crucial time to begin teaching by example how people should behave toward one another. Toys that help babies with social development are stuffed animals, animal mobiles and dolls. Even very small babies can socialize with them. The infant will often converse with animals prancing on the crib bumpers or revolving on mobile. Later, books and opportunities for make-believe and dress-up play also help children to develop social skills.
In the beginning, babies' hand movements are totally random. But within a few months those tiny hands will move with more purpose and control. A mother has a particularly important role in the development of purposeful movement by giving her baby's hands plenty of freedom; rather than keeping them swaddled or tucked under a blanket (except outdoor in cold weather). researchers suggest providing a variety of objects that are easy for small hands to pick up and manipulate, and that don't require fine dexterity. And since young babies usually won't grasp objects that are directly in front of them, a mother should offer these objects from the side.
Researchers suggest that mothers give babies ample of opportunity for "hands-on" experience with the following:
* Rattles that fit small hands comfortably. Those with two handles or grasping surfaces allow a baby to pass them from hand to hand, an important skill, and those that baby can put their mouth on will help bring relief when teething begins.
* They also suggest mothers use cradle gyms (they fit across a carriage, playpen or crib) that have a variety of parts for baby to grab hold of, spin, pull and poke. Beware of those, however, with strings more than 6 inches long, and take any gym down once your baby is able to sit up.
* Another useful play device is an activity board that requires a wide range of hand movements to operate, many of which your baby won't be able to intentionally maneuver for a while, but some of which even a young infant can set in motion accidentally with a swipe of a hand or foot. Besides the spinning, dialing, pushing, and pressing skills these toys encourage, they also teach the concept of cause and effect.
Questions 16 - 19
Complete the table below. Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 16 - 19 on your answer sheet.
A play device that helps children to understand the cause and effect of movement is the (16) .
Babies learn how to develop social behaviour by playing with (17) .
Research shows that learning music and a language are similar in that they both involve (18) .
Make believe (19) .
Questions 20 - 24
Choose one phrase A - H from the list of phrases to complete each key point below. Write the appropriate letters A - H in boxes 20 - 24 on your answer sheet.
NB There are more phrases A - H than sentences, so you will not use them all.
List of Phrases
A. Offer it from the side of the baby
B. Improve a child's imagination
C. Have strings more than six inches long
D. Teach cause and effect
E. Play and talk with your child
F. Require fine dexterity skills
G. Build social skills
H. Build pre-reading skills
20. Listening to music can help...
21. Researchers suggest mothers provide objects that do not ...
22. It is important that cradle gyms do not ...
23. Even if you have no educational qualifications, you should ...
24. If you give an object to a baby you should ...
Questions 25 - 28
Do the following statements reflect the claims in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 25 - 28 write:
YES if the statement reflects the writer's claims
NO if the statement contradicts the writer
NOT GIVEN if there is no in formation about this in the passage
25. The research lends support to the benefit of private day nurseries.
26. There is no shortage of nurseries, playgroup or school places.
27. Young babies at all ages benefit from mothers who talk and play games with them.
28. The text suggests one key problem with reception classes is lack of staff per child.
PRACTICE READING PASSAGE FOUR
There is a great concern in Europe and North America about declining standards of literacy in schools. In Britain, the fact that 20 per cent of 16 year olds have a reading age of 14 or less has helped to prompt massive educational changes. The development of literacy has far-reaching effects on general intellectual development and thus anything which impedes the development of literacy is a serious matter for us all. So the hunt is on for the cause of the decline in literacy. The search so far has focused on socioeconomic factors, or the effectiveness of "traditional" versus "modern" teaching techniques.
The fruitless search for the cause of the increase in illiteracy is a tragic example of the saying "They can't see the wood for the trees". When teachers use picture books, they are simply continuing a long-established tradition that is accepted without question. And for the past two decades, illustrations in reading primers have become increasingly detailed and obtrusive, while language has become impoverished—sometimes to the point of extinction.
Amazingly, there is virtually no empirical evidence to support the use of illustrations in teaching reading. On the contrary, a great deal of empirical evidence shows that pictures interfere in a damaging way with all aspects of learning to read. Despite this, from North America to the Antipodes, the first books that many school children receive are totally without text.
A teacher's main concern is to help young beginner readers to develop not only the ability to recognize words, but the skills necessary to understand what these words mean. Even if a child is able to read aloud fluently, he or she may not be able to understand much of it: this is called "barking at text". The teacher's task of improving comprehension is made harder by influences outside the classroom. But the adverse effects of such things as television, video games, or limited language experiences at home, can be offset by experiencing "rich" language at school.
Instead, it is not unusual for a book of 30 or more pages to have only one sentence full of repetitive phrases. The artwork is often marvelous, but the pictures make the language redundant, and the children have no need to imagine anything when they read such books. Looking at a picture actively prevents children younger than nine from creating a mental image, and can make it difficult for older children. In order to learn how to comprehend, they need to practise making their own meaning in response to text. They need to have their innate powers of imagination trained.
As they grow older, many children turn aside from books without pictures, and it is a situation made more serious as our culture becomes more visual. It is hard to wean children off picture books when pictures have played a major part throughout their formative reading experiences, and when there is competition for their attention from so many other sources of entertainment. The least intelligent are most vulnerable, but tests show that even intelligent children are being affected. The response of educators has been to extend the use of pictures in books and to simplify the language, even at senior levels. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge recently held joint conferences to discuss the noticeably rapid decline in literacy among their undergraduates.
Pictures are also used to help motivate children to read because they are beautiful and eye-catching. But motivation to read should be provided by listening to stories well read, where children imagine in response to the story. Then, as they start to read, they have this experience to help them understand the language. If we present pictures to save children the trouble of developing these creative skills, then I think we are making a great mistake.
Academic journals ranging from educational research, psychology, language learning, psycholinguistics, and so on cite experiments which demonstrate how detrimental pictures are for beginner readers. Here is a brief selection:
The research results of the Canadian educationalist Dale Willows were clear and consistent: pictures affected speed and accuracy and the closer the pictures were to the words, the slower and more inaccurate the child's reading became. She claims that when children come to a word they already know, then the pictures are unnecessary and distracting. If they do not know a word and look to the picture for a clue to its meaning, they may well be misled by aspects of the pictures which are not closely related to the meaning of the word they are trying to understand.
Jay Samuels, an American psychologist, found that poor readers given no pictures learnt significantly more words than those learning to read with books with pictures. He examined the work of other researchers who had reported problems with the use of pictures and who found that a word without a picture was superior to a word plus a picture. When children were given words and pictures, those who seemed to ignore the pictures and pointed at the words learnt more words than the children who pointed at the pictures, but they still learnt fewer words than the children who had no illustrated stimuli at all.
Questions 1 - 4
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage? In boxes 1 - 4 write
YES if the statement agrees with the information given
NO if the statement contradicts the information given
NOT GIVEN if there is no information about this
1. It is traditionally accepted that children's books should contain few pictures.
2. Teachers aim to teach both word recognition and word meaning.
3. Older readers are having difficulty in adjusting to text without pictures.
4. Literacy has improved as a result of recent academic conferences.
In the above, the test takers are provided with the following four statements:
1. It is traditionally accepted that children's books should contain few pictures.
2. Teachers aim to teach both word recognition and word meaning.
3. Older readers are having difficulty in adjusting to text without pictures.
4. Literacy has improved as a result of recent academic conferences.
Let us first look at Question #1. While reading the text, we come across the following statement, "When teachers use picture books, they are simple continuing a long-established tradition that is accepted without question." We now know that the use of picture books is part of a long teaching tradition. This is a refutation of the first statement that claims that teachers do not like to use picture books, or would prefer to use books with few pictures. The answer to Question #1 is therefore clearly "False". This example is fairly straightforward. Let us look at some more.
Later in the same text, we read, "A teacher's main concern is to help young beginner readers to develop not only the ability to recognize words, but the skills necessary to understand what these words mean." Question #2 is simple a re-wording of this very sentence. The answers are indeed all right there in front of us. The answer is clearly "True"
Both of these examples seem very simple. In fact, like most of the IELTS tests, this section is indeed simple. There are, however, some tricks to keep in mind. Not only must we ignore our background knowledge, we should also note one other principle particular to this section: the definition of "Not Given" is very strict. What does this mean? Let us illustrate this principle by way of example.
In the reading passage we read that ,"The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge recently held joint conferences to discuss the noticeably rapid decline in literacy among their undergraduates." We can assume from this statement that the two universities probably came up with some good solutions and found ways to improve literacy rates among their undergraduates. Question #4 states. "Literacy has improved as a result of recent academic conferences." Based up on our logic, the answer to this question should be "True". But if we chose this answer we will be wrong. Why?
