【推荐1】Summer is a great time to improve your child's reading! After all, there is more free time.

Reading over the summer can help your child keep up his reading gains during the past school year and also help prepare him for the next year!

How to sign up(报名):

We are inviting you to sign up for free to help your child be an active reader this summer! Just follow the steps：

*Go to www.readfun.org

*Select "Parent"(NOT "Teacher")

*Click on the blue "Sign Up"

What we provide：

We provide you with thousands of free, high-quality articles with questions and activities. To make summer reading easy, we have selected interesting and knowledge-filled articles of different levels. You can go to www.readfun.org/summer-reading to download and print the articles for free.

How to use：

TIP 1: Articles for summer reading should be accessible, so be sure to choose articles at your child's reading level. If the articles that you choose are too difficult to understand, it is very easy for kids to lose interest in reading. Don't be afraid to start with articles of lower grade levels. The important thing is that he reads, reads, reads！

TIP 2: It's also important to help your kid develop good reading habits . Help him keep a good record of his summer reading. Besides, encourage him to discuss what he has read with family members. That way, you will all have a good time.

We wish you and your family a great summer!

How to Improve Your Reading

Learning how to read well in English might not be an easy task.     1     Reading well in English is useful for many reasons, not only for taking tests. If you want to improve your reading in English, the following are just for you!

Choose right reading materials (材料).

There are so many choices! There are textbooks and graded readers, but there are also a lot more books you can read.     2     Here is a good rule to follow: choose reading materials where you understand at least 80% of the content (内容).

Be intentional (意图明确的).

Being intentional means doing something on purpose with a reason in mind. With reading, you need to be intentional by setting a reading aim. Decide on a certain number of pages you want to read each day.     3     To make sure your daily practice gets done, spare some time and put it in your study plan!

    4    

Reading can both introduce you to new vocabulary (词汇) and teach you how to use them. Many words in English are often used together in a consistent (相互连贯的) way. Reading groups of words, or words that go together, will help you better understand how to use your new vocabulary.

【推荐2】Life in the future will be different from life today. Many changes will happen. But what will the changes be?

    1     There will be many people in the world and most of them will live longer than people live now.

    2     There will be at least one in every home. And computer studies will be one of the most important subjects in school then.

    3     They will have more free time for doing sports, watching TV and traveling. Traveling will be much cheaper and easier. And more people will go to other countries for holidays.

    4     More land will be used for building new towns and houses for all the people. Then there will be less room for cows and sheep, so meat will be more expensive. Maybe no one will eat meat every day. Instead they will eat more fruit and vegetables. Maybe people will be healthier.

Work will be different in the future, too. Robots will do dangerous and hard work. Because of this, people will not have enough work to do. This will be a problem.

It is a country, in northern Europe. It is home to Santa Claus and the game Angry Birds. And it was recently said to be the world's happiest country. It's Finland（芬兰）!

According to this year's United Nations World Happiness Report, Finland topped 156 countries and regions to get the title of the world's happiest country. The ranking（排名）considers six key factors（因素）—income（收入）, freedom, trust, healthy life expectancy（预期健康寿命）, social support, and generosity（慷慨）.

What made Finland stand out? Why are its 5. 5 million people so happy?

One reason is the country's history of equality（平等）, the Guardian reported. The Finnish government has worked hard to reach a balance between men and women, workers and bosses, and foreigners and locals.

Finland successfully cut the size of its homeless population between 2014 and 2016. The lifestyles of the rich and poor in Finland are not too different, The Economist noted.

Making sure of equality encourages people to build trust, over 80 percent of Finns trust the country's police, education and healthcare systems. People there live in a pleasant and safe environment.

The Finns also have a positive attitude（态度）toward life. There is a word that describes this attitude—"sisu". It means the ability to stay strong during difficult times. This helps the Finns deal with stress and worry, as well as keeps them happy and energetic.

【推荐2】Qomolangma is the world’s highest mountain. You may have learned from your textbooks that its height is 8,844 meters. But not all sides are in agreement on this. Different researchers have given different results. In addition, the height of the mountain can change over time.

That’s why a 30-member Chinese survey team set out to reach the peak of Qomolangma to remeasure its height on May 6, 2020. They were equipped(配备) with the latest technology, including a global navigation satellite system receiver (接收器) and a radar (雷达).

It is not an easy task. The average air temperature on the mountain is -29 ℃—four degrees lower than that in Antarctica and powerful winds blow all the time. In such bad conditions, surveying drones (无人机) cannot work at the peak of the mountain. That’s why it’s still necessary to send human experts to the peak to get reliable (可靠的) results.

But does a difference of a few meters really matter when it comes to a high mountain?

In fact, measuring the height of Qomolangma is about more than just getting one exact number. Mount Qomolangma is at the point where the Eurasian plate(板块) meets the Indian plate. It formed 38 million years ago as the two plates hit each other. Changes in the peak’s height can show whether the two plates are heading toward or away from each other. This can help us understand the movement of Earth’s crust (地壳).

The survey team will also get firsthand information about environmental conditions at the top of the mountain. This will help us understand how climate change has affected the Tibet-Qinghai Plateau.

【推荐3】① “I wish I had straight hair”; “I’d like to be taller”. At times, we all want to look a bit more like someone else. However, the pictures we see on TV and social media can give us improper ideas about how our bodies “should” look. The truth is that everybody is different—and that’s a good thing. Accepting and feeling good about our bodies is really important for our self confidence.

②Body confidence is when someone accepts and behaves kindly towards their body. That includes our size and shape, skin color, appearance and any physical disabilities. Jade Parnell from the Centre for Appearance Research (CAR), says that having body confidence is “about accepting your body and what it does for you”.

③Research has even shown if you have body confidence, you may take part in more activities and perform better in school. However, feeling worried about your body could make you step back, do less well at school and even feel down. Parnell says that the cost of trying to achieve the “perfect” appearance is high. She says, “If you’re spending a lot of time trying to look a certain way, you will have less time to spend with friends and to make important memories.”

④It’s important to remember that everybody is different. To develop a positive body image, Parnell says, “Try to talk positively about your own body and other people’s bodies. Try not to pay too much attention to appearance. Instead, think about what your body does for you; do your legs make you run really fast?” She also suggests treating your body well by eating different kinds of foods, exercising to feel good and to have fun, and getting plenty of sleep. Remember that you are more than how you look.