1 . For some people, the warmest memories from childhood come from being read a great story.     1     It develops children’s language skills and increases their ability to succeed in school and later work.

A new report by the American Academy of Pediatrics says reading aloud is so important that parents should start as soon as their children are born and continue to read aloud even after their children can read by themselves. They say parents should also point to and talk about pictures in books for infants (婴幼儿).     2    

The company Scholastic is a major U. S. publisher of children’s books. Every two years, Scholastic publishes a report on American reading attitudes and habits. The 2015 report says only 31percent of children in the U. S. read a book for fun almost every day.

    3     One is simply to have books in the home. Elizabeth Lyttleton, the mother of three, is lucky. Her mother once wrote and illustrated children’s books, so the family always have plenty to read. She says all her children learn from books but in different ways.     4     Researchers from the Scholastic company found that 80% of children surveyed—of all ages—say they love being read to. And children ages 6 to 11 whose parents do not read to them anymore say they miss it.

    5     Of all the six to 17-year-olds in the Scholastic study, more than 90% said their favorite books are the ones they chose for themselves.

There are other methods that might help you with your studying.

3 . Reading can be a social activity. Think of the people who belong to book groups. They choose books to read and then meet to discuss them. Now, the website Book Crossing.com turns the page on the traditional idea of a book group.

Members go on the site and register (登记) the books they own and would like to share. Book Crossing provides an identification number (识别码) to stick inside the book. Then the person leaves it in a public place, hoping that the book will have an adventure, traveling far and wide with each new reader who finds it.

Bruce Pederson, the managing director of Book Crossing, says, “The two things that change your life are the people you meet and books you read. Book Crossing combines both.”

Members leave books on park benches and buses, in train stations and coffee shops. Whoever finds their book will go to the site and record where they found it.

People who find a book can also leave a journal entry describing what they thought of it. E— mails are then sent to the BookCrossers to keep them updated about where their books have been found. Bruce Pederson says the idea is for people not to be selfish by keeping a book to gather dust on a shelf at home.

Book Crossing is part of a trend (趋势) among people who want to get back to the “real” and not the virtual (虚拟).The site now has more than one million members in more than one hundred thirty—five countries.

“What shall I read” You might have asked     1    (you) this question more than once. If you are not sure what to read, you can get ideas from different     2    (source), but it is also important to develop your own taste.

To start with, ask your friends, parents and teachers     3    (recommend) what books you ought to read. Most people will be happy to share their favourite books with others. Teachers in particular can provide suggestions for interesting reading materials that can     4    (find) in the library or bookshop easily. You could also read book reviews in newspapers, in magazines     5    online.     6     book review can often tell you whether a book is worth reading or not.

These ideas should point you in the right direction. However, you must also decide for yourself what kind of books to read. You do not have to read a book just because everyone recommends it. Instead, look for books on topics     7     interest you. Take time to look through the collections     8     different sections of your local library, and you are likely to come across books you love to read. Over time, you may find yourself     9    (well) able to seek out books to your taste and enjoy     10    (read) all the more.

6 . I will never forget one summer in my childhood. While walking in the attic(阁楼), I stepped on something and ________ down, with my hand landing on a floorboard that popped up and almost hit me in the head. When I________ and looked inside the open space, I could not believe my eyes: There was gold in there!I seized a handful of shining gold cubes, ran to the bottom stair and ________. “Mama. I found gold up here under the floor!”

Back up the stairs I dashed.________ my brothers almost knocked me back down as they ran right by me. When Mama opened the door and ________ her head out, she simply said, “Honey, that’s insulation(隔热材料). Now put it all back. ”

I felt really disappointed. I had thought I made a real ________.

When I ________ inside to put the fake gold back, my hand touched what felt like a book. I pulled it out. It was old and small: Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, which I’d never heard of. And now that I was bored, I decided to see what was inside this little book. To my ________, it was a book of passages, phrases, and proverbs and I could tell that this was going to be ________.

So I spent quite much time on it and found ________ in these pages, As I didn’t know how to express things clearly, I often ________ to talk about them. This book helped me ________ that I didn’t need to feel ashamed or embarrassed, because other people had similar experiences.

When I went to college, Bartlett’s came with me. Over the years, I’ve kept my original ________, which to this day I often ________. Although it was a ________ to find the book, it liberated me in a way. It helped me see more than my young mind and heart were able to understand.

The book discovered under those floorboards was, indeed, gold.

8 . All the wisdom of the ages and all the stories that have delighted mankind for centuries are easily and cheaply available to all of us within the covers of books. The most unfortunate people in the world are those who have never discovered how satisfying it is to read good books.

Reading is the pleasure of the mind, which means that it is a little like a sport: your eagemess and knowledge and quickness make you a good reader. Reading is fun, not because the writer is telling you something, but because it makes your mind work. Your own imagination works along with the author’s or even goes beyond his. Your experience,compared with his, brings you to the same or different conclusions, and your ideas develop as you understand his.

Every book stands by itself, like a one-family house, but books in a library are like houses in a city. Although they are separate, together they all add up to something. They are connected with each other and with other cities. Books influence each other, they link the past, the present and the future and have their own generations, like families. Wherever you start reading, you connect yourself with one of the families or ideas, and in the long run, you not only find out about the world and the people in it but also you find out about yourself, too.

Reading can only be fun if you expect it to be. If you concentrate on books somebody tells you “you ought” to read, you probably won’t have fun. But if you put down a book you don’t like and try another till you find one that means something to you, and then relax yourself with it, you will almost certainly have a good time and if you become, as a result of reading, better, wiser, kinder, or more gentle, you won’t have suffered during the process.

Chinese people’s reading habits