Vì nhận thấy có nhiều bạn quan tâm, mình sẽ quay lại với seri các bài Reading trong bộ Cam. Từ giờ các bài như vậy sẽ gồm 2 phần: Phần 1. giải nghĩa (không dịch cả bài) và đưa từ mới; Phần 2. giải đề và đưa keyword table. Vậy nên bài viết có thể hơi dài một chút. Mình cùng sẽ tách một câu thành các cụm từ (bằng việc in nghiêng cụm từ) để bạn luyện đọc nhanh hơn. Hy vọng các bạn cảm thấy hữu ích và thành công trong công cuộc chinh phục IELTS. Để lại bình luận để cùng trao đổi thêm nhé.

Chú thích:

• in nghiêng(…): các cụm từ đi với nhau mà bạn nên dịch ngược lại (có kèm giải thích trong ngoặc)
• in đậm: từ vựng cần học
• gạch chân: đoạn chứa đáp án/ keywords

The Importance of Children’s play
Tầm quan trọng của vui chơi với trẻ em

Brick by brick(từng bước một tạo ra hoặc phá hủy thứ gì đó), six-year-old Alice(cô bé Alice 6 tuổi) is building a magical kingdom(một vương quốc ma thuật). Imagining fairy-tale turrets (pháo đài cổ tích) and fire-breathing dragons(những con rồng thét ra lửa), wicked witches(những mụ phù thủy độc ác) and gallant heroes(anh hùng hào kiệt), she’s creating an enchanting world(một thế giới hấp dẫn). Although she isn’t aware of it, this fantasy is helping her take her first steps(=begin, start new things, bước những bước đầu tiên) towards her capacity for creativity¹(khả năng sáng tạo) and so it will have important repercussions(ảnh hưởng/hệ quả quan trọng) in her adult life.

Minutes later, Alice has abandoned(bỏ lại) the kingdom in favour of(preferring to choose sb or sth that you believe is better) playing schools with her younger brother. When she bosses him around(give order, ra lệnh, chỉ đạo) as his ‘teacher’, she’s practising how to regulate her emotions through pretence(điều khiển cảm xúc qua việc đóng giả). Later on, when they tire of this and settle down(to relax, doing a quite activity, giả lao) with a board game(những trò như chơi cờ, ô chữ, chơi bài…), she’s learning about the need to follow rules and take turns with a partner²(sự cần thiết của việc tuân theo luật và chơi theo lượt cùng bạn chơi).

‘Play in all its rich variety(việc chơi trong tất cả những dạng phong phú của nó) is one of the highest achievements of the human species(một trong những thành tựu lớn nhất của loại người),’ says Dr David Whitebread from the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, UK. ‘It underpins(=support, strengthen) how we develop as intellectual, problem-solving adults(người trưởng thành có trí tuệ, biết giải quyết vấn đề) and is crucial to our success as a highly adaptable species.'(một loại có khả năng thích nghi tốt)

Recognising the importance of play is not new: over two millennia(1000 năm) ago, the Greek philosopher Plato extolled(praise, ca ngợi) its virtues (ưu điểm) as a means (phương pháp) of developing skills for adult life, and ideas about play-based learning(học dựa trên vui chơi) have been developing since the 19th century.

But we live in changing times(thời kì đổi mới), and Whitebread is mindful of(aware, attentive, nhận thức) a worldwide decline in play(một sự giảm sút vui chơi trên thế giới), pointing out(show, reveal) that over half the people in the world now live in cities³. ‘The opportunities for free play, which I experienced almost every day of my childhood, are becoming increasingly scarce(rare, uncommon),’ he says. Outdoor play is curtailed (limit, restrict, giới hạn) by perceptions of risk(nhận thức rủi ro) to do with traffic, as well as parents’ increased wish to protect their children from being the victims of crime^4,5, and by the emphasis (stress, importance, sự quan trọng) on ‘earlier is better’ which is leading to greater competition⁶(cạnh tranh lớn hơn) in academic learning and schools.

International bodies (tổ chức quốc tế) like the United Nations and the European Union have begun to develop policies concerned with children’s right to play(quyền được chơi của trẻ em), and to consider implications (effect, inference, sự can thiệp) for leisure facilities and educational programmes. But what they often lack is the evidence to base policies on⁷(bằng chứng để các chính sách dựa vào).

‘The type of play we are interested in is child-initiated(những trò chơi mà trẻ em tự nghĩ ra), spontaneous (unplanned, natural, tự nhiên) and unpredictable (không đoán được)– but, as soon as you ask a five-year-old(một đứa trẻ 5 tuổi) “to play”, then you as the researcher have intervened(interrupt, can thiệp),’ explains Dr Sara Baker. ‘And we want to know what the long-term impact(ảnh hưởng lâu dài) of play is. It’s a real challenge.’

Dr Jenny Gibson agrees, pointing out that although some of the steps in the puzzle (câu hỏi) of how and why play is important have been looked at, there is very little data on the impact it has on the child’s later life⁸.

Now, thanks to the university’s new Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL), Whitebread, Baker, Gibson and a team of researchers hope to provide evidence on the role played by play in how a child develops.

‘A strong possibility (khả năng) is that play supports the early development of children’s self control(sự tự kiểm soát của trẻ em),’ explains Baker. ‘This is our ability to develop awareness of our own thinking processes(quá trình tư duy của riêng chúng ta) – it influences how effectively we go about undertaking (undertake = carry out, đón nhận) challenging activities.’

In a study carried out by Baker with toddlers (baby, trẻ con mới biết đi) and young pre-schoolers, she found that children with greater self-control solved problems more quickly when exploring an unfamiliar set-up(một tình huống xa lạ) requiring scientific reasoning(đòi hỏi lập luận khoa học). ‘This sort of evidence makes us think that giving children the chance to play will make them more successful problem-solvers(người giỏi giải quyết vấn đề hơn) in the long run.’

If playful experiences (kinh nghiệm vui chơi) do facilitate(help, hỗ trợ) this aspect of development, say the researchers, it could be extremely significant for educational practices, because the ability to self regulate(=self-control) has been shown to be a key predictor (dự báo) of academic performance.⁹

Gibson adds: ‘Playful behaviour is also an important indicator (dấu hiệu quan trọng) of healthy social and emotional development. In my previous research, I investigated (điều tra) how observing (sự quan sát) children at play can give us important clues(manh mối quan trọng) about their well-being(happiness, welfare, sự khỏa mạnh) and can even be useful in the diagnosis (analysis, discover, sự phân tích) of neurodevelopmental disorders (rối loạn phát triển thần kinh) like autism(tự kỷ).’¹⁰

Whitebread’s recent research has involved developing a play-based approach(phương pháp dựa vào vui chơi) to supporting children’s writing. ‘Many primary school children find writing difficult, but we showed in a previous study that a playful stimulus(sự khuyến khích vui chơi) was far more effective than an instructional one(việc hướng dẫn).’ Children wrote longer and better-structured stories when they first played with dolls¹¹ representing characters in the story. In the latest study, children first created their story with Lego *, with similar results. ‘Many teachers commented that they had always previously had children(trước đây luôn có những học sinh mà) saying they didn’t know what to write about. With the Lego building¹², however, not a single child(không còn học sinh nào) said this through the whole year of the project.’

Whitebread, who directs PEDAL, trained as a primary school teacher in the early 1970s, when, as he describes, ‘the teaching of young children was largely a quiet backwater(backwater = remote place, ở đây ám chỉ việc dạy trẻ em không được chú ý, quan tâm), untroubled(không gây tranh cãi) by any serious intellectual debate (cuộc tranh luận) or controversy(sự phản đối).’ Now, the landscape is very different, with hotly debated topics such as school starting age.

‘Somehow (bằng cách nào đó) the importance of play has been lost in recent decades¹³. It’s regarded as(nó được cho là) something trivial(minor, nhỏ, không quan trọng), or even as something negative that contrasts (khác biệt) with “work”. Let’s not lose sight of its benefits, and the fundamental contributions(những sự đóng góp căn bản) it makes to human achievements in the arts, sciences and technology. Let’s make sure children have a rich diet of play experiences(một chế độ phong phú về trải nghiệm vui chơi).’
__________________________________
* Lego: coloured plastic building blocks and other pieces that can be joined together

Các bạn note lại toàn bộ các từ in đậm, hoặc những từ bạn chưa rõ nghĩa, học một lượt rồi quay lại đọc bài gốc để kiểm tra độ hiểu.

Chữa bài:

Questions 1-8:
Complete the notes below
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer:
Write your answers in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.

Children’s play:

Uses of children’s play
· building a ‘magical kingdom’ may help develop 1 ……………….. (danh từ)
(scan nhanh được keyword ở đoạn 1, this fantasy = a magical kingdom >> creativity)
· board games involve 2 ……………….. (danh từ) and turn-taking
(scan board games ở đoạn 2, turn-taking = take turn, đáp án là một danh từ ngang hàng với take turn >> rules
Recent changes affecting children’s play (scan đoạn 5)
· populations of 3 ……………….. (danh từ) have grown
(populations of… = people live in… ; have grown = over half of people >> cities)
· opportunities for free play are limited due to:
   – fear of 4 ………………..
   – fear of 5 ………………..
(scan ở đoạn 5, risk to do with…= fear; being the victims of …= fear, >> traffic và crime)
   – increased 6 ……………….. in schools
(scan cuối đoạn 5, academic learning and schools, increased = greater >> competition)
International policies on children’s play:
· it is difficult to find 7 ……………….. to support new policies
( scan đoạn 6, what they often lack = difficult to find ; support new policies = base policies on >> evidence)
·  research needs to study the impact of play on the rest of the child’s 8 ……………….. (scan đoạn 7, study = puzzle, nghiên cứu = đặt ra câu hỏi, the rest = later . phần còn lại=sau này >> life)

Questions 9-13:
Do the following statements agree with the information given on the reading passage?
In boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE    if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE   if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN   if there is no information on this

9.  Children with good self-control are known to be likely to do well at school later on.
(đoạn 12, self-regulate = self-control; school = academic performance, predictor = likely … later on >> TRUE)
10.  The way a child plays may provide information about possible medical problems.
(đoạn 13, playful behavior = the way a child plays; medical problem = neurodevelopmental disorders like autism >> TRUE)
11.  Playing with dolls was found to benefit girls’ writing more than boys’ writing.
(writing được nhắc đến trong đoạn 14, có nhắc đến doll nhưng không so sánh girls và boys >> NOT GIVEN)
12.  Children had problems thinking up ideas when they first created the story with Lego.
(Lego tìm thấy ở đoạn 14, việc xếp Lego giúp không còn học sinh nào gặp vấn đề về writing nữa, chứ không phải chúng gặp vấn đề khi xếp lego >> FALSE)
13.  People nowadays regard children’s play as less significant than they did in the past.
(đoạn 16, tầm quan trọng của việc chơi đã mất đi trong vài thập kỷ gần đây, nó được coi là thứ yếu >> TRUE)

Keyword table

Questions	Test
magical kingdom	this fantasy
turn-taking	take turns
populations of…	people live in…
had grown	over half of people in the world
fear	risk to do…
fear	protect their children from being victim
increased	greater
schools	academic learning and schools
difficult to find	often lack
to support new policies	to base policies on
study	puzzle
the rest of	later…
self-control	self-regulate
to be likely to … later on	a key predictor
school	academic performance
the way a child plays	playful behaviour
medical problems	well-being, neurodevelopmental disorders like autism
children’s play nowadays less significant than the past	Somehow the importance of play has been lost in recent decades. t’s regarded as something trivial