One day soon after school had started, I said to them, “Now I’m going to say something about reading that you have probably never heard a teacher say before. I would like you to read a lot of

　　books this year, but I want you to read them only for pleasure. I am not going to ask you questions to find out whether you understand the books or not. If you understand enough of a book to enjoy it and want to go on reading it, that’s enough for me. Also I’m not going to ask you what words mean. The children sat stunned and silent. Was this a teacher talking? One girl, who had just come to us from a school where she had had a very hard time, looked at me steadily for a long time after I had finished. Then, still looking at me, she said slowly and seriously, Mr Holt, do you really mean that?” I said just as seriously, “I mean every word of it.

　　During the spring she really astonished me. One day, she was reading at her desk, From a glimpse of the illustrations I thought I knew what the book was. I said to myself, “It can’t be,” and went to take a closer look. Sure enough, she was reading Moby Dick , in edition with woodcuts. I said, “Don’t you find parts of it rather heavy going?” She answered, Oh, sure, but I just skip over those parts and go on to the next good part. “

　　This is exactly what reading should be and in school so seldom is, an exciting, joyous adventure. Find something, dive into it, take the good parts, skip the bad parts, get what you can out of it, go on to something else. How different is our mean-spirited, picky insistence that every child get every last little scrap of “understanding” that can be dug out of a book.

【2017届湖南省长沙市望城区高考英语一轮复习完形填空和阅读理解训练：2（含解析）】相关文章：

★ 重庆市2014高考英语阅读理解一轮（精品）训练题（7）附答案

★ 2017届高考英语二轮复习课时训练：20（含解析）

★ 湖南省汝城二中2014届高考英语一轮复习阅读训练 (53)

★ 河南省商丘市第三高级中学2013届高考英语第二轮专项复习《名词》教学设计（一）

★ 2017高考四川省广安市英语阅读理解一轮系列训练：7（含解析）

★ 2014届高考英语一轮复习必修3参考答案（外研版）

★ 2017届高考英语二轮复习课时训练：18（含解析）

★ 浙江省湖州市2014高考英语阅读理解一轮（暑假）精炼（19）含答案

★ 湖南省汝城二中2014届高考英语一轮复习阅读训练 (26)

★ 2017届高考英语二轮复习课时训练：3（含解析）