종달새의 아마추어햄 그리고 항공우주통신

아래 첨부파일 [다운로드]를 클릭하면 원문 청취가 가능합니다.

For most American children, summer is a time away from schoolbooks.
But it is not supposed to be a time away from reading.

One of the most important issues in American education is how to teach children to read.
The most common methods depend on phonics.

This system teaches children to connect words with the sounds of the letters that form those words. Children often learn the sounds of letters before they learn to read.

With phonics, children are taught to “sound out” words they do not know.
For example, to learn the word “cat,” children first learn to recognize the sound of the letter C.

Then they learn the sounds of the letters A and T used together.
Finally, they join these sounds to form the word.

In another method of teaching phonics, children learn to recognize the whole word first.
They write the word enough times until they remember it.

Schools often present this method during the teaching of reading, not before.
Then the children learn to study words for their sounds.

This helps them understand why some letters are used in a word instead of others.
Experts say phonics makes it possible for children
to sound out many words that they do not recognize by sight.

However, the sound of a letter is not always the same in every word.
For this reason, many teachers add other methods to teach reading.

A few years ago, a committee studied many reading methods.
The National Reading Panel urged teachers to use phonics in their programs.

And in two-thousand-two President Bush signed an education law called No Child Left Behind.  t includes a program called “Reading First.”

The goal is to increase the reading skills of American children.
The program is based on the suggestions of the National Reading Panel.

Over the years, there has been a lot of debate among teachers, parents
and politicians over ways to teach reading.
Another method is called whole language.

Children are taught ways to learn new words not so much by how they sound as by how they are used.  Supporters of phonics say this requires too much guessing.

But a lot of experts say the best way to teach reading is
to combine phonics and whole language methods.

This VOA Special Education Report was written by Jerilyn Watson.
This is Steve Ember.

Broadcast: June 10, 2004
This is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English Education Report.

아래 첨부파일 [다운로드]를 클릭하면 원문 청취가 가능합니다.

Many students and teachers of mathematics visit a Web site
provided by Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The site is called the Math Forum at Drexel.
The address is mathforum.org.

The site says it receives about four-million visits a month from people around the world.
Some services require membership. But other materials are free of charge.

The Math Forum at Drexel includes an Internet Mathematics Library.
This is a library that collects and organizes thousands of other Web sites related to math.

Another area is called Ask Doctor Math. Visitors can ask an expert a question at any level. A number of experts give their time to choose and answer interesting problems.

More than five-thousand questions-and-answers are organized by subject and level.
Visitors can also search by terms.

Ask Doctor Math contains a page of almost fifty commonly asked questions.
For example, it explains how to make a Pascal’s Triangle.

Mathematician, scientist and thinker Blaise Pascal developed
this triangle made of numbers in the seventeenth century.
It is used in algebra and to find combinations in probability.

Another page at the Math Forum at Drexel is called Classic Problems.
For example: In a family with two children, if one child is a boy,
what are the chances that the other child is a girl?

Ready for the answer? The answer is ... two-thirds. Why two-thirds?
The example shows what is called a conditional probability tree to explain the answer.

Another part of the site is called Teacher2Teacher.
This area permits math educators to share opinions, suggestions and issues.

They trade ideas for classroom activities and teaching methods.
Master teachers answer questions and offer suggestions.

These teachers have won top awards for their teaching of mathematics.
And there is a Teacher Exchange area.

Math teachers around the world can share their own materials.
For example, there are materials by Suzanne Alejandre,
a well-known middle school math teacher in the United States.

She has prepared lessons and activities designed mainly for students
between the ages of eleven and fifteen.
Again, the address of the Math Forum at Drexel is mathforum.org.

This VOA Special English Education Report was written by Jerilyn Watson.
I’m Steve Ember.

Broadcast: January 15, 2004
This is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English Education Report.

아래 첨부파일 [다운로드]를 클릭하면 원문 청취가 가능합니다.

More than nine-million children in the United States attend public middle schools.
Middle school is the level between elementary and high school.

The first one opened in nineteen-sixty to help ease crowding in existing schools.
Today thirty-thousand teachers, school officials, parents and others
belong to the National Middle School Association.

This independent group advises and represents schools.
This month, the association suggested ways
to improve education for students between the ages of ten and fifteen.

Its position statement is called “This We Believe: Successful Schools for Young Adolescents.”
Sue Swaim is executive director of the association.

Mizz Swaim says there are middle schools that are well on their way to providing the best possible education. But, she says, having some successful schools is not enough.

She says all must do better, especially if the nation is to meet the goals of the education law called No Child Left Behind.
President Bush signed this law last year. It requires greater testing in schools.

The National Middle School Association says schools should employ teachers
who are trained especially to work with students in this age group.

It says schools should offer a number of teaching methods.
And it says they should form teams of two to four teachers
to work with a common group of students.

The association advises middle schools to get students actively involved in their learning.
It says students learn best when they take part in the teaching process.

Schools are also urged to continually measure the progress of students.
And they are told that expectations for everyone in the school should be high.

The National Middle School Association also advises schools to create a mission statement.
Such a statement describes the needs and goals of a school, and helps guide decisions.

Middle schools are also urged to develop an inviting and safe environment.
Students should feel supported.

Further, the association says all the adults in successful middle schools
Help advise and guide the students.
It says successful schools work to get families involved.
And these schools recognize that young people can learn more than adults often believe.

This is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English Education Report.
 

This VOA Special English Education Report was written by Jerilyn Watson.
This is Steve Ember.

아래 첨부파일 [다운로드]를 클릭하면 원문 청취가 가능합니다.

Every year, people from all over the world get information
from the United States National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland.

The library is part of the National Institutes of Health.
It is the world’s largest center of medical information.

Doctors, scientists, teachers and historians use the library.
So do people who just want to know more about health and sickness.

Thousands of people visit the Library near Washington, D.C. Others get information by computer.

For example, people can get health information from a National Library service called Medline Plus.

This service cannot identify or advise about individual cases of disorders.

But it provides general knowledge about more than six-hundred-fifty diseases and conditions.
A Medline Plus dictionary includes descriptions of medical words.

For example, you might hear that someone has had an appendectomy.
In the medical dictionary, you can learn that the person has had an operation
to remove a part of the intestine called the appendix.

Drug information on the site describes medicines.
Suppose you want to know the possible effects of taking the pain-killer aspirin.

You can check a long list of drug descriptions.

You can get Medline Plus services through the National Library of Medicine’s Web Site, www.nlm.nih.gov.

Information appears in English and Spanish.
The Library also offers a Web site especially for older adults and their families.

It is called NIH Senior Health, found at www.nihseniorhealth.gov.
The National Library created the site with the National Institute on Aging.

The site makes it possible for people to find current information from National Institute of Health centers. 

For example, older people can learn the latest news about the treatment of heart disease or osteoporosis, a bone disorder.

The site designers developed NIH Senior Health from Institute on Aging studies about changes

 in the thinking abilities of older people.

These include understanding, learning, memory and ability to see.
Because of these changes, the site contains print that can be made bigger and sharper.
Information has been kept short.  And a “talking” operation can speak the words.

This VOA Special English Health Report was written by Jerilyn Watson.

Broadcast: March 24, 2004
This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

아래 첨부파일 [다운로드]를 클릭하면 원문 청취가 가능합니다.

Some kinds of fungus are used as a natural treatment in agriculture. 
Farmers use the organisms to control insects that eat crops. 

Now, scientists report that these same fungus can also kill mosquitoes that spread malaria.

Science magazine published two studies on this subject in June. 

In one of the studies, a British team tested a fungus called Beauveria bassiana. 
They treated surfaces with a liquid that contained the fungus.

Then they let mosquitoes rest on the surfaces after a meal of blood. 
Mosquitoes normally rest for several hours after a blood meal. 

The scientists were searching for a substance that would infect the mosquitoes during this period.

Matt Thomas of Imperial College London led the study. 
He says the Beauveria bassiana fungus entered the mosquitoes quickly. 

It took seven days for the mosquitoes to get sick. After that, they reduced their feeding. 
Ninety percent of them died within fourteen days. 

That was good news. 
Professor Thomas says mosquitoes normally go one to two weeks between feedings. 

When they bite, they inject the parasite that causes malaria.
Researchers from the Netherlands and Tanzania did the second study. 

They treated material with a fungus used to kill locusts. 
The name of that fungus is Metarhizium anisopliae. 

The treated material was hung in several homes in Tanzania. 
The scientists reported a moderate reduction in the number of malaria-carrying mosquitoes. 

However, they say the results would still be enough to sharply reduce the spread of malaria.
Malaria is getting more difficult to fight as mosquitoes develop resistance to traditional treatments. 

Scientists say the fungus could possibly be used instead of chemical poisons to kill mosquitoes.

But more research is needed to test how long the fungus can survive in hot environments.

The World Health Organization estimates that malaria kills more than one million people   
a year mostly in Africa. Most of the victims are children under the age of five. 
Pregnant women are also at greater risk from the disease. 

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals aim to reduce deaths among children and pregnant women.

Malaria control is one way to do that.

This VOA Special English Development Report was written by Jill Moss. 

Our reports are all on the Web at voaspecialenglish.com.  I’m Steve Ember.

Written by Jill Moss 10 July 2005