4 . Understand your pet's body language

Body language is different depending on what sort of animal you have chosen as your pet.    1    Understanding your pet's body language will help you to be a better communicator, as you can even copy some of its movements, expressions and sounds to send your message in a way it understands.

●     2    If your dog isn't looking directly at you, but is looking out of the corners of its eyes so that you see a lot of the whites of the eyes, it might be about to have an aggressive outburst. If your dog is feeling stressed or aggressive, its wide eyes will be accompanied by a rigid(绷紧的)body.

●If your cat looks at you and blinks at you slowly, it's likely communicating affection.    3    For cats, closing one's eyes in the presence of another is a way to show trust. If your cat feels threatened, its tail will likely be upright; its back will likely be arched, too.

●    4    If your bird's pupils (   瞳孔) enlarge and shrink rapidly, this can be a sign that it's excited or greatly interested, or scared or angry.    5    Birds will shake their feathers while cleaning themselves ; if their feathers remain shaking, however, this could mean they’re unwell, in which case, take them to an animal doctor for a checkup.

5 . Rainforests are home to a rich variety of medicinal plants, food, birds and animals. Can you believe that a single bush（灌木丛）in the Amazon may have more species of ants than the whole of Britain! About 480 varieties of trees may be found in just one hectare of rainforest.

Rainforests are the lungs of the planet-storing vast quantities of carbon dioxide and producing a significant amount of the world's oxygen. Rainforests have their own perfect system for ensuring their own survival; the tall trees make a canopy（树冠层）of branches and leaves which protect themselves, smaller plants, and the forest animals from heavy rain, intense dry heat from the sun and strong winds.

Amazingly, the trees grow in such a way that their leaves and branches, although close together, never actually touch those of another tree. Scientists think this is the plants' way to prevent the spread of any tree diseases and make life more difficult for leaf-eating insects like caterpillars. To survive in the forest, animals must climb, jump or fly across the gaps. The ground floor of the forest is not all tangled leaves and bushes, like in films, but is actually fairly clear. It is where dead leaves turn into food for the trees and other forest life.

They are not called rainforests for nothing! Rainforests can generate 75%of their own rain. At least 80 inches of rain a year is normal-and in some areas there may be as much as 430 inches of rain annually. This is real rain-your umbrella may protect you in a shower, but it won't keep you dry if there is a full rainstorm. In just two hours, streams can rise ten to twenty feet. The humidity（湿气）of large rainforests contributes to the formation of rainclouds that may travel to other countries in need of rain.

6 . Reading instruction in the classroom is a key concern for all teachers and there are many ways to go about it. However, is our determination to achieve excellence in reading skills in our children killing their love and enjoyment of a good book?

In my work with parents, I am frequently asked the best ways to encourage reluctant readers to be engaged with books. Parents report that their children return home from school with no inclination to pick up a book and read.

Any eager reader will gladly talk about the joy with a good book to read away the hours on a cold, rainy afternoon. Reading a good book is one of life’s greatest pleasures. We need to share these experiences with our children in order to assist them in developing into strong readers. But the use of boring, mass-produced home reading texts in children’s early years at school can be seen as the beginning of this negative cycle.

As children progress through their schooling life, there are many other instances of learning reading skills that don’t help reading development. Frequently, teachers feel the pressure to give their students “just enough” in terms of reading strategies to be able to achieve the test, which leaves little time to focus on reading for pleasure.

Kelly Gallagher, a high school teacher, outlines the term “Readicide” in his book. He says it’s: the systematic killing of the love of reading, often worsened by foolish, boring practices found in schools.

Recent research shows that many teachers tend to follow the traditional literacy practices that they have experienced in their own education, which can often have negative intentions for their students.

While teaching children key concepts for analyzing and evaluating texts is important, the manner in which it is done and time that is spent on this can lead to unexpected results. Schools aren’t to blame when it comes to not arresting students’ lack of interest in reading, but they have an important role to play in fostering reading enjoyment.