雅思课外读物--Does online preschool program work? - 雅思(IELTS)-全程雅思学习-雅思中国网

摘要：今天要跟大家分享的雅思阅读素材叫做“Does online preschool program work?”最近，在线教育真心特别火。它提供了一种方便的，高效的学习方式，深受各类学生的喜欢。对于小朋友们来说，在线教育的意义在哪儿呢？一起来看这篇阅读素材怎么讲的吧！

“In some of the most rural parts of Utah and the country, there simply isn’t a bricks-and-mortar(实体的)option or, if there is, it involves a long travel time,” Miner said.

About half of the children who participated in Upstart during the 2014-2015 school year were enrolled in another preschool program. One of them was Megan Albrecht’s daughter, who attended a preschool three half-days each week.

“The Upstart program was great, but it really just went over letters, just the alphabet and the grammar part, and there’s so much more than just that,” said Albrecht, a mother of three in Panguitch, Utah, a rural town of 1,600 in southern Utah, near Bryce Canyon’s famous rock hoodoos.

But Albrecht said Upstart is an important tool because it provides her a structure, and a daily nudge(推动), to teach her daughter the alphabet and basic skills for kindergarten.

Mark Innocenti, a professor at Utah State University, was skeptical(怀疑的)about using scarce state funds to pay for an educational model with unproven results for low-income students. But after evaluating whether the program is effective when used in home day care and district-run preschool programs, his thinking has changed.

Innocenti said he has been convinced that combining online learning with traditional preschool is a valid approach that gives children the best of both worlds. But he said he remains concerned about relying on an in-home computer program to serve the poorest children, especially those whose parents work or speak English as a second language.

Utah’s legislature recently started an effort to serve those children in traditional, center-based preschools. In a twist on preschool funding — using “social impact bonds” — investors can foot(结算;衡量) the upfront costs of providing traditional preschool programs. And if the program meets goals for reducing the number of children who need costly special education services, taxpayers pay the investors back, with interest.

That program is quite small, serving about 1,000 children, according to Stephenson, the state senator. And it is far more expensive than Upstart. It probably will cost taxpayers between $1,900 and $2,000 per child, according to state fiscal analysts.

Stephenson said the cost of traditional preschool limits how many of the state’s 50,000 4-year-olds can be served.

“We can cover a lot more children with the same dollars with Upstart,” he said.

Vocabulary

navigate 航行

pilot program 试点项目

customize 定制

ingredient 成分

wishful thinking 异想天开

inception 开始;开端

bolster 支持

literacy 读写能力

fraction 小部分;分数