Finding time to read is an important part of developing reading and writing skills for all kids. And there are many easy and convenient ways to make reading a part of each day — even when it's tough to find time to sit down with a book.

    Car trips, waits in checkout lines and the doctor's office are all opportunities for reading. Keep books or magazines in your car, or backpack to pull out whenever you're going to be in one place for a while. Even if you can't finish a book, read a few pages or discuss some of the pictures.

    Encourage kids to bring favorite books and magazines along wherever you go. While it's attractive to provide electronic games and readers, be sure to alternate electronic media with plenty of opportunities to read traditional print books.

    Reading opportunities are everywhere you go. While riding in the car, for example, encourage kids to spot words and letters (on billboards, store signs, etc.), turning it into a game (“Who'll be the first to find a letter B?”).

    Even daily tasks like cooking can provide reading moments. Kids can assist you as you cook by telling you how much flour to measure. Give your child a catalogue to read while you sort through the mail. Ask relatives to send your child letters, e-mail, or text messages, and read them together. Help your child create letters or messages to send back to the relatives. These types of activities help kids see the purpose of reading and of print.

    Even when you're trying to get things done, you can encourage reading. While cleaning, for instance, you might ask your child to read a favorite book to you while you work.

    Make sure kids get some time to spend quietly with books, even if it means cutting back on other activities, like watching TV or playing video games.

    Most important, be a reader yourself. Kids who see their parents reading are likely to imitate them and become readers, too!

    The cultures of the East and the West really distinguish each other a lot. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    The origin of the eastern cultures is mainly from two countries: China and India. Both of the two cultures are developed by rivers—the Yellow River in China and the Hindu River in India. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

When the two mother rivers gave birth to the Eastern culture, another famous culture was brought up on the Mesopotamian Plain-the Mesopotamian Civilization. This civilization later on developed into the cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Like the Chinese culture, the European culture also crossed waters. When the British settled down in America, their culture went with them over, the Atlantic Ocean. So the American culture doesn't distinguish from the European culture a lot.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Take the language system for example. In the East, most languages belong to the pictographic language while the Western languages are mostly based on the Latin system. Other causes like human race difference counts as well. But what's more, due to the far distance and the steep areas between the East and West, the two cultures seldom communicate until recent centuries. So they grew up totally in their own ways with almost no-interference (干扰)from the other.

The differences are everywhere. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} But different cultures make the world of 21st century more colorful. The cultural gap should not be the obstacle to the civilization of human being. It ought to be the motivation of our going farther.

    Since the first Earth Day in 1970, Americans have gotten a lot “greener” toward the environment. “We didn't know at that time there even was an environment, let alone that there was a problem with it,” says Bruce Anderson, president of Earth Day USA.

    But what began as nothing important in public affairs has grown into a social movement .Business people, political leaders, university professors, and especially millions of grass-roots Americans are taking part in the movement. “The understanding has increased many， many times,” says Gaylord Nelson, the former governor from Wisconsin, who thought up the first. According to US government reports, emissions (排放)from cars and trucks have dropped from 10.3 million tons a year to 5.5 tons .The number of cities producing CO beyond the standard has been reduced from 40 to 9. Although serious problems still remain and need to be dealt with, the world is a safer and healthier place. A kind of “Green thinking” has become part of practices.

    Great improvement has been achieved. In 1988 there were only 600 recycling programs; today in 1995 there are about 6,600. Advanced lights, motors, and building designs have helped save a lot of energy and therefore prevented pollution.

    Twenty –five years ago, there were hardly any education programs for environment. Today, it's hard to find a public school, university, or law school that does not have such a kind of program. “Until we do that, nothing else will change!” say Bruce Anderson.

    I visited Copenhagen for the first time last Easter. As a student，I'm always strapped for cash，so I assumed I could only afford to breathe the air — but luckily everything about Copenhagen is breathtaking.

I was staying in an Airbnb, and rented a bike so I could cover more ground. One of the first places I visited was the Rundetaarn, or "round tower" built in the 17th century as an astronomical observatory. It has an equestrian staircase (a wide set of stairs big enough for horses to use) that went on and on. As I was going up, I stopped to visit the tower's library hall. At the top, there's a glass platform that gives a view 80-foot straight down, as well as a bell loft. Luckily, the views over Copenhagen from the top were well worth the climb.

    After coming down, I hiked up to the Kastellet Fortress to see the famous Little Mermaid statue. Taking a photo with her was almost impossible with all the tourists crowding around—but sitting there and hearing the lapping waves of the deep blue Baltic Sea, waiting for the sun to set, was an unforgettable and calming experience.

    The next day, I visited the Glyptotek art museum, exploring the grand exhibits. I looked into the marble eyes of many Roman gods，and walked down dimly lit staircases to see mummies from Egypt.

    Before I unwillingly boarded the train back to the airport, I told myself that I must visit again—to experience the thrills of Tivoli Gardens, try more of the street food and everything else from this amazing city.

    It's a classroom. Instead of being told to sit quietly and listen, you are encouraged to stand up, jump around, imagine and act out. It's a class full of laughter and applause (鼓掌), emotion and energy. Welcome to drama class, one of my favorite classes at high school.

    In drama class we used to play a lot of “drama games”. We would improvise (即兴表演), copy and above all use our imagination.

    My favorite game was called “Spotto”. One person stood in the front of the class and performed a scene, completely out of their imagination. When one audience member yelled “Spotto!”, the performer had to freeze. Then the person who had yelled Spotto had to get up and improvise a new scenario (剧情) based on the position the first performer froze in. This went on as more and more people were added to the scene. Eventually the entire class would have joined the scene. Then the performers would start to leave in reverse (颠倒的) order.

    It was a lot of fun, and a good test of everyone's imagination to see what they would come up with. Drama class at my school often involved a big performance at the end of the term as well. We would work on a production throughout the term and put on a show for our parents and the school community.

    It was a great experience to perform on stage in front of a large audience. Drama class can help shy children, like me, to come out of their shells. It helped them become more confident and developed their public speaking skills. Drama class is also a great place to express oneself, and a way for children to use up some of their energy.

    Students perform less well in final exams if smartphones are allowed in class, for non-academic (非学业的) purposes in lectures, a new study in Educational Psychology finds. Students who don't use smartphones themselves but attend lectures where their use is acceptable also do worse, suggesting that smartphone use damages the group learning environment.

    Researchers from Rutgers University in the US performed an in-class experiment to lest whether dividing attention between smartphones and the lecturer during the class affected students' performance in within-lecture tests and a final exam. 118 students at Rutgers University took part in the experiment during one term of their course. Smartphones were not allowed in half of the lectures and allowed in the other half. When smartphones were allowed, students were asked to record whether they had used them for non-academic purposes during the lecture.

    The study found that having a smartphone didn't lower students' scores in comprehension tests within lectures, but it did lower scores in the final exam by at least 5%, or half a grade. This finding shows for the first time that the main effect of divided attention in the classroom is on the length of time in keeping memory, with fewer things of a study task later remembered. In addition, when the use of smartphones was allowed in class, performance was also poorer for students who did not use them as well as for those who did.

    The study's lead author, Professor Arnold Glass, added: "These findings should alarm students and teachers that dividing attention is having a not obvious but harmful effect that is damaging their exam performance and final grade. To help manage the use of smartphones in the classroom, teachers should explain to students the alarming effect—not only for themselves, but for the whole class."

    This is the first-ever study in an actual classroom showing a relationship between losing attention from smartphones and exam performance. However, more researches are required to see how students are affected by using smartphones after school.