1 . We all wish we had our very own libraries at home. They’re a great way to keep what you love reading best organized in one place. Technology has taken over our lives and everything seems to be accessible _______. The sad part about online books is that the realness of holding one in your hands is lost. It may be _______ to those who often travel, but there’s nothing like printed books in libraries that you can leaf through, as opposed to clicking through.

Unlike the Internet, printed books are much more _______ than any other sources. Rarely will you find a list of references mentioned at the end of the article section on the web. Printed books are _______ carefully before they’re published so that the facts mentioned in non-fiction books are all true and necessary. Reference pages at the end of these books are also mentioned in some works that require such a section.

Unlike electronic devices that can have problems such as the loss of _______ it stores, printed books have a way of lasting for years to come if _______ with care. They can be collected as valuable books that you’d like to have in their _______ form, as well as be passed on to others who’d like to read them as well. It’s great when you have something like a book to hold on to (留存) and read, while an online book _______ that close and constant companionship.

_______, you can’t expect kids to hold up an iPad under the sheets late at night. Reading ________ books ensures that kids have access to reading without being spoiled into buying a(n) ________ product that can distract (分心) them from actual reading. Kids love picture books and the images that come with them, which is great for present authors who still ________books that are intended for kids.

Libraries are a great place that dates back to a time when ________ was non-existent and was an unbelievable idea to men back in that period. Today the ________ of libraries still exists, with many people going to them for the love of books. It is important for children to start off by reading the real thing before ________ what other media can offer. Anyway, never forget what first got you started.

2 . You may know the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” It _________ the idea behind the Living Library project. Like _________ library, a Living Liberty offers readers books, except that these “books” can _________ to you. But these living books are not like anything from a(n) _________ movie — they are people like you and me.

The Living Library project was started in 2000 by a group of young people in Denmark. They wanted to reduce _________ and encourage understanding between people, and they had the idea of bringing together some very different people to communicate _________. These living books were from different cultural backgrounds, nations, educational levels, religions and _________.

Reading living books is very _________: Each book can talk with readers face to face, and sometimes a small group of readers can read one book together. The book and the reader(s) _________ and share different thoughts, ideas, lifestyles and so on.

The project began to gain in __________ in other parts of the world and was introduced to China in 2009. This past April, a wave of Living Library events was held in more than 20 Chinese cities. In Guangzhou, for example, 50 living books were presented to 200 readers.

The event was divided into four rounds; each lasted 40 minutes. In each round, __________ eight readers would read one book together. One of the living books, Tang, suffered from depression. She talked about her experience of fighting depression and also pointed out a problem: People’s __________ about mental illnesses was preventing many patients from getting treatment in time.

In Living Library events like this one, it is not one person __________ another, but someone introducing others to a different idea or way of life. Everyone can raise questions and everyone is __________.

“Everyone is a book,” said Liu Qiongxiong, the organizer of the event in Guangzhou. “By reading others we can better understand each other and__________.”

3 . Reading involves looking at illustrative symbols and expressing mentally the sounds and ideas they represent. Concepts of reading have changed _______ over the centuries. During the 1950’s and 1960’s especially, increased attention has been devoted to _______ the reading process. Although experts agree that reading _______ a complex organization of higher mental _______, they disagree about the exact nature of the process. Some experts, who regard language primarily as a code using symbols to represent sounds, _______ reading as simply the decoding (解码) of symbols into the sounds they stand for.

These authorities _______ that meaning, being concerned with thinking, must be taught independently of the decoding process. Others maintain that reading is inexplainably related to thinking, and that a child who pronounces sounds without _______ their meaning is not truly reading. The reader, _______ some, is not just a person with a theoretical ability to read but one who _______ reads.

Many adults, although they have the ability to read, have never read a book in its ________. By some experts they would not be ________ as readers. Clearly, the philosophy, objectives, methods and materials of reading will depend on the definition one uses. By the most ________ and satisfactory definition, reading is the ability to ________ the sound-symbols code of the language, to interpret meaning for various ________, at various rates, and at various levels of difficulty, and to do so widely and enthusiastically. ________, reading is the interpretation of ideas through the use of symbols representing sounds and ideas.

5 . The habit of reading is one of the greatest resources of mankind: we enjoy reading books that belong to us much more than if they are borrowed. Some people regard a borrowed book as a ________ in the house. It must be treated with care and considerate ________. Casual attitudes are forbidden. Because the book is borrowed it tolerates no damage which means it must not suffer while ________. While reading the book, you are not allowed to make any mark or underline the important ________ when a flash of creative idea emerge. This is huge ________ to one’s imagination.

________, your own books belong to you and you can treat them with so much closeness that you are not afraid to mark it up or to place it in a dirty place. Your own books are there for use, not for ________. You don’t need to display them in front of others. Private ownership also encourages ________ marking. A good reason for marking instructive passages in books is that this practice enables you to remember more easily the significant sayings, to ________ them quickly and then review them more frequently in the future.

Given the importance of owned books to a man, everyone should begin collecting a private library, making up his own ________ property. One should have his own bookshelves, which should not be having doors, glass windows, or keys. They should be free and ________ to the hand as well as the eye. Like the jewellery to a woman, the best moral _________ to a man is books. They are more varied in colour and appearance than any wall-paper. Their variety indicates ________ out of brains of different book writers. The knowledge that books are in plain view is also stimulating. Your body and mind are both _________. With books at hand, your mind is free to land any _________ or even strange possibility, which eventually gives birth to new discoveries or inventions.

6 . Background noise—like the chatter in a coffee shop or the drone of passing traffic—might slow our reading speed, but according to a study of Russian readers, it doesn’t _________ how our brain understands written text.

_________, if you’re wondering whether you should be listening to podcasts or music while working, the study has some interesting points to make. In particular, it examined how we might change our reading style to compensate for auditory noise and visual distractions such as typos or poor formatting.

“Overall, previous studies reported a harmful effect of both auditory and visual noise on reading fluency and _________, though their results varied,” write linguistics researcher Nina Zdorova and colleagues. “So far, none of the studies exploring the influence of noise _________ it in the framework of the language processing theories.”

One of the language processing theories examined was the noisy channel model, which proposes that our brain deals with noise by looking at the meaning of _________ words more and at entire sentences less. We then use a bit of smart guesswork to _________ the overall meaning and relationships between words.

The second theory is the good enough model; that’s when our brains aren’t analyzing every single detail of a text but instead only grabbing enough words for a ‘good enough’ understanding. By focusing less on the precise words, our brains can _________ some cognitive resources to deal with noise.

To see how reading was affected by noise _________ these models, the researchers ran two experiments: one on auditory noise (71 participants) and one on visual noise (70 participants). When it came to the auditory noise test, background chatter from overlapping podcasts caused people to spend longer looking at the key section of sentences before completing their reading. This extra time could _________ the noise, meaning sentence comprehension isn’t affected by it. In the visual noise test, comprehension remained the same while reading speed __________. That’s a bit __________ considering previous studies, but the researchers think people just wanted to finish the task, with the visual noise an uncomfortable distraction.

There’s a lot going on in this study, but overall it’s a bigger win for the good-enough language processing theory and an indication that auditory and visual noise doesn’t make us __________ any more or less on any particular comprehension method while we’re reading.

With so many variables to measure in terms of what’s being read and what the __________ noise is, further study is required to learn more. __________ potential distractions may not interrupt your reading as much as you think.

7 . According to a research, the average reading score of students in the USA this year declined in comparison to the previous study last year. The study indicates that there is a significant_________in reading ability levels in grades 7-12. The result confirms what American secondary teachers have been saying, that both high and low achieving students are often unmotivated to read. This_________of motivation has been the major reason for their poor reading ability.

Perhaps it is no surprise to researchers that the decline in reading ability_________American students’ decreasing freedom in choosing reading method and time. One of the best ways to deal with the situation is for teachers to provide time in the academic day for voluntary reading of texts. There may be objections to the use of already_________academic time, but the research indicates that time spent reading in school_________academic performance. Most students who are given   extra reading time in school get higher scores in reading tests. This is true even for the “light” or _________reading of young adult literature.

An argument for providing_________ in the school day for reading practice is the comparison to the necessary practice one needs in order to become skilled at a sport: the increased practice hours increase performance. Even 10 minutes a day of reading can have dramatic effects by simply _________ students to multiple texts. Ten minutes of daily book reading in middle school will increase about 700,000 words of reading each year for a student. And this additional volume of reading can bring huge_________to the students.

Besides, compared with the crowded casual classroom environment, independent reading libraries in school can help students produce a sense of being__________. Students can discover authors, explore topics that__________them, and improve their reading habits.

The research concludes that there are millions of students who do not have the basic reading __________that are needed to locate relevant information or make simple judgement. The effects of underdeveloped reading ability on the student and on the economy of the American society can mean the__________ of billions of dollars in wages and earnings over a lifetime.

Therefore, secondary educators need to guide students to associate reading with enjoyment by offering time and choices. This__________can result in making reading a desired activity and   making students__________to read.

9 . Now that we have briefly explored the history of the short story and heard from a few of its creators, let us consider the role of the reader. Readers are not empty vessels that wait, _______ raised, to receive a teacher’s or a critic’s interpretation. They bring their unique life experiences to the story. With these_______ , the best readers also bring their attention, their reading skills, and most importantly, their_______ to a reading of a story.

My students always_______ me to discuss, analyze, interpret, and evaluate the stories we read without destroying the excitement of being beamed up into another world. For years I _______with one response after the other to this challenge. Then one day I read an article by a botanist who had explored the beauty of flowers by x-raying them. His illustrations showed the rose and the lily in their_______ beauty, and his x-rays_______the wonders of their construction. I brought the article to class, where we discussed the benefits of examining the internal structure of flowers, relationships, current events, and short stories.

A short story, _______ , is not a fossil to admire. Readers must ask questions, guess at the answers,_______what will happen next, then read to discover. They and the author form a partnership that brings the story to life. Awareness of this partnership keeps the original excitement alive through discussion, analysis, interpretation, and ________. Literary explorations allow the reader to admire the authors’________ as well as their artistry. In fact, original appreciation may be enhanced by this x-ray vision. The final step is to appreciate once again the story________— to put the pieces back together.

Now it is your turn. Form a partnership with your author. During your________in reading, enter into a dialogue with the published scholars featured in Short Stories for Students. Through this________with experts you will revise, enrich, or________your original observations and interpretations.

During this adventure, I hope you will feel the same as the listeners that surround the neck of my Pueblo storyteller.