From VOA Learning English, this is the  Education Report in Special English.
这里是美国之音慢速英语教育报道。

Teachers and parents usually call attention to the pictures when they read storybooks to preschool children. But a study published in 2011 suggests that calling attention to the words and letters on the page may lead to better readers.
当教师和家长给学龄前儿童朗读故事书时，他们通常会提醒儿童注意图片。但2011年发表的一项研究表明，提醒儿童注意单词和字母可能会使儿童的阅读能力更好。

The two-year study compared children who were read to this way in class with children who were not. Those whose teachers most often discussed the print showed clearly higher skills in reading, spelling and understanding. These results were found one year and even two years later.
这项为期两年的研究对课堂上是否用这种方式朗读进行了对比。教师经常讨论印刷文本，其学生的阅读、拼写和理解能力明显更高。这一结果会在一年甚至两年后体现出来。

Shayne Piasta, an assistant professor of teaching and learning at Ohio State University, was an author of the study. She says most preschool teachers would find this method manageable and would need only a small change in the way they teach. They already read storybooks in class. The only difference would be increased attention to the printed text.
俄亥俄州立大学教学助理教授Shayne Piasta是这项研究的作者之一。她表示，大多数幼儿园教师会发现这一方法易于操纵，只需要对她们的教学方式上进行一些很小的改动。她们早在课堂上朗读故事书，唯一的区别就是提高对印刷文本的重视。

Ms. Piasta says if you get children to pay attention to letters and words, it makes sense that they will do better at word recognition and spelling. But she says research suggests that very few parents and teachers do this in a systematic way.
Piasta女士表示，如果你让孩子注意单词和字母，那么可以理解，他们会在识字和拼写上做得更好。但她表示，研究表明只有极少数家长和教师会系统化地这么做。

The report appears in the journal Child Development.
这份研究报告发表在《儿童发展》杂志上。

More than three hundred children age four and five were observed in classrooms in Ohio and Virginia. The children came from poor families and were below average in their language skills. This put them at risk for reading problems later.
该研究观察了俄亥俄州和弗吉尼亚州的教室里的三百多名四到五岁的儿童。这些孩子来自贫困家庭，其语言技能低于平均水平。这使得他们随后会面临阅读障碍的风险。

For thirty weeks, the children took part in a program called Project STAR, for Sit Together And Read. The project is based at Ohio State. It tests the short-term and long-term results of reading regularly to preschool children in their classrooms.
这些孩子参加了为期30周的Sit Together And Read（简称STAR）项目。这一研究项目基于俄亥俄州，它会定期测试教室里学龄前儿童的短期和长期阅读成绩。

Laura Justice at Ohio State was an investigator for the study. She heads the Preschool Language and Literacy Laboratory. She says one of the areas that interests researchers is known as the "locus of learning."
俄亥俄州的Laura Justic是该研究的一名调研人员。她负责幼儿语言和识字实验室。她说，引起研究人员兴趣的一个领域被称为“学习轨迹”。

LAURA JUSTICE: "Where is it that a child learns something? Where is that space? We think we have identified it pretty well in terms of fostering some children’s knowledge about print."
LAURA JUSTICE说：“孩子们学习的轨迹在哪里？这个空间在哪里？我们认为在促进孩子对印刷文本的认识方面，我们已经作出了很好的确认。”

Professor Justice says this knowledge can be gained by having focused discussions when reading a book to a child.
Justice教授表示，这些知识可以通过给儿童朗读书本时进行有针对性的讨论获得。

LAURA JUSTICE: "We think we understand how information about print is transmitted from the adult to the child. And we think we have centered on this intervention that really helps adults center in on the things that children need and want to learn."
LAURA JUSTICE说：“我们认为自己了解印刷文本信息如何从成人传递到儿童。也认为我们围绕这种干预，会真正帮助到成人以儿童必须和想要学习的东西为中心。”

There are different ways that adults can talk to children about print. They can point to a letter and discuss it, and even trace the shape with a finger. They can point out a word: "This is ’dog.’" They can discuss the meaning of the print or how the words tell the story. And they can talk about the organization of the print -- for instance, showing how words are written left to right in English.
成人可以通过多种途径和儿童讨论印刷文本。他们可以指向一个字母并讨论它，甚至用手指临摹字母的形状。他们可以指出一个单词：“这是Dog。”可以讨论该单词的意思，或者这个单词讲述了什么故事。他们可以讨论印刷文本的组成方式--例如，指出这个单词用英文从左到右如何书写。”