VOA慢速英语:Using Art to Make Summer School More Interesting

June, July and August are vacation months for most American school children. But some young students pay a high price for that long summer break. They may forget much of what they learned over the past year by the time they start the next grade.
6月、7月和8月是大多数美国学生的假期时间，但有的学生为了这个夏日长假付出了高昂代价。等到下一年级开始时，他们可能会忘记上一年学的很多东西。

This problem is often called the summer learning gap. A growing effort across the country aims to deal with it by offering more interesting summer school programs. Some students already attend summer school, but often because they received poor grades during the regular school year.
这个问题通常被称作夏日学习间隔，美国正在通过提供更有趣的夏日学校项目来努力改善这个问题。有的学生已经进了夏日学校，但通常是因为在常规的学年没有得到好成绩才来的。

STUDENT: "People need food, clothes, and other goods …"
学生：“人们需要食物、衣物和其他物品......”

On a recent day, students read out loud about communities in a third-grade social studies class at Bushman Elementary in Dallas, Texas. But the nine- and ten-year-olds were also studying art. Visual arts instructor Ron Oliver works to combine the two subjects.
最近，在德克萨斯州达拉斯布希曼小学三年级的社会学课堂上，学生们大声读关于社区的知识。不过9年级和10年级学生也学艺术，视觉艺术导师努力将这两门学科结合起来。

RON OLIVER: "The kids that never get it -- like the thirty percent that always struggle on testing -- they thrive in this kind of atmosphere. Sometimes they just learn differently."
RON OLIVER：“这些孩子们从来都没及格过，大约30%的人总是很难通过考试，但他们在这样的氛围中学得很好，有时他们只是学习方法和别人不同而已。”

In addition to reading, the students expressed themselves in picture form by drawing community scenes.
除了阅读，学生们还通过画社区场景用图片来表达自己的想法。

BOY: "When I was drawing, I was expressing my feelings and showing what was happening."
男孩：“当我画画时，我是在表达自己的感受，描述正在发生的事。”

GIRL: "You only use the pictures, and you use it to tell the people, the pictures telling the words for you. You don’t need words."
女孩：“我们只用图片来告诉人们自己想说的话，不需要文字。”

Their teacher Gloria Pegram has taught elementary school for fifteen years. She says art helps with memory.
他们的老师Gloria Pegram教小学已经15年了，她说艺术可以提高记忆力。

GLORIA PEGRAM: "Even with math, we try to be creative with it -- it helps their retention. They remember. They say, 'Oh, yes, I remember this because ... ' and they’ll go into what we were doing, hands-on, whatever activity we were doing, to help them understand it better, and to retain it."
GLORIA PEGRAM：“甚至对于数学，我们也尝试用创造性的方法来学习，这样可以提高学生的记忆力，他们会记住的。他们会说，‘哦，我记住了，因为......’他们就会深入研究我们亲手做的任何东西，从而帮助他们更好的理解并记住。”
 
Ms. Pegram says students who do not take summer enrichment classes often need to relearn lessons when they return in the fall. This is especially true of low-income students. They are less likely, for example, to live near public libraries offering both books to read and special summer reading programs.
Pegram老师说，那些不参加暑假提高班的学生通常要在夏季开学后复习功课，这对低收入学生尤为如此。比如，他们不大可能住在能提供图书和夏季专门阅读项目的公共图书馆附近。

Ed Pauly is director of research and evaluation at the Wallace Foundation. The noNPRofit group has invested fifty million dollars to study which programs work best to prevent summer learning loss.
Ed Pauly是华里斯基金会研究和评估主任，这家非盈利组织投资了5500万美元来研究哪些项目在预防夏季学习损失上最有效。

ED PAULY: "And for poor kids, the loss can be as much as three months of school learning that just disappears over the course of the summer. That’s a very significant part of the achievement gap that separates kids from low-income communities from kids from more affluent communities."
ED PAULY: “对于穷学生来说，这相当于他们在夏日课程上损失了3个月的学校学习。这样很显著的成绩差距将低收入社区孩子和更富裕社区的孩子分开。”

He says one promising approach has been to include art.
他说一个很有潜力的方法包括艺术。

ED PAULY: "We need kids to master reading and math. Arts gets them excited about being there every day. And the arts use reading and math. The arts are a great way to tie together learning experiences."
ED PAULY: “我们要让孩子们学习阅读和数学，艺术可以让他们天天都开心，艺术还使用了阅读和数学能力，在连接学习经验方面，艺术是很棒的方法。”