【推荐1】I was a special education teacher. After _________ in a school for some time, I realized that my children, who had dyslexia (诵读困难), needed more _________. So I left my teaching job to homeschool my four boys. I started using a multi-sensory _________ to teaching which involved making letters out of sand.

In this _________, I traced (勾画) the letters of the alphabet with glue and then took different colored sand and scattered (撒) it all over the _________. Then I had the children _________ each of the letters on a string (细线) by the door to dry. I was _________ to watch my children who had no interest in reading trace the letters in the air as if they were doing skywriting, and then feel the sand letters using the fingers. After that, they would use a piece of paper and _________ the letters.

I totally marvelled at how this _________ process had helped all of my four boys to be able to __________ the letters and the words. This particular lesson seemed to make a __________ to my children. They told me on different occasions that they felt __________ or dumb because they could not keep up with other children. But after the particular lesson, they started to move at the same rate as other children.

I’m __________ that I was able to help my children. I wish to help other children with __________ disabilities and dyslexia. I hope that other teachers also could __________ this method.

【推荐3】As a young man in one of Washington, D.C.’s toughest neighbourhoods, Rodney Stotts had little to live for. His father had been murdered. His mother was _______ to drugs. Many of his friends were _______ from gun violence. And he _______ to end up dead or in prison. But then in 1992, an environmental programme _______ his life.

The environmental programme was created by filmmaker and conservationist Bob Nixon. Its first _______ was to clean the Anacostia River. Nixon _______ nine young helpers, including Stotts, from a nearby public housing community. For the next several years, spending his days cleaning up the river, Stotts also _______ about birds of prey(猛禽). Over time, Stotts found himself drawn more toward caring for birds than selling drugs.

The more he moved away from drugs, the _______ he seemed to get. Along the way, Stotts also wanted to become a master falconer(养隼大师). It requires two main _______: passing a state test and finding a sponsor. The sponsor teaches the important lessons of falconry: how to identify, trap, and care for the birds; and how to ________ them back into the wild. However, many possible sponsors did not ________ him seriously. Eventually he found a sponsor. And last June he officially became a “master falconer” passing his knowledge to the next ________.

On a recent May evening, Stotts talked with young people in the Capital Guardian Youth Challenge Academy. It is a ________ for young school dropouts working to help injured birds.

Stotts told them to ________ their phones and just sit and listen to the water. He used an old ________, “Stop and smell the roses.” He told them, “Stop. Actually, stop and smell them.”