致中国读者
Fitzroy Readers的故事可以追溯到40年前，源于作者对于自己孩子的期许以及对于教育事业的热爱和执着。是什么原因让菲兹洛伊小学的孩子们出类拔萃？又是什么原因让这些读本故事得以出版并成为经典？且听Faye & Philip娓娓道来：
你好，下午好！欢迎关注菲兹洛伊读本！
Ni Hao. Good afternoon. Welcome to the Fitzroy Readers.
我是菲，我是菲利普。
My name is Faye，and I'm Philip.
Faye:
We are delighted that you have chosen to use the Fitzroy Readers for teaching your children and perhaps yourself how to read, write and speak English fluently. Our story goes back over 40 years.
我们很高兴你选择了菲兹洛伊读本给你的孩子，也可以是给你自己，学习如何流利地读、写英语。我们的故事可以追溯到40年多年前。
Philip:
We started our own school(elementary school), and we chose to teach the children the traditional way of reading English words by looking at the letters and knowing the sounds that they make. This was a novelty of the time, although it is the traditional way of learning to read English. So we brought it back, and since that has happened many other schools have adopted what is called the Phonic method based on the sounds of the letters. There are only 26 letters, and they are entire language that is expressed by those few letters, and that's the method of our books.
我们创立了自己的小学，同时我们选择用传统的方法教英语 - 通过看字母识别字母发音的方式。这在当时是个新颖的事，但实际上它曾经是一种学习阅读英语的传统方式，所以我们把它带回来了。从那以后，很多其他的学校也采用了被称为拼读法的教学方法，这是一种基于字母发音的方法。英文只有26个字母，它们是英语的全部，所有的英语都能被这些少量的字母表达出来，这就是我们的读本使用的方法。
Faye:
Sometimes we use one letter to make a sound, and sometimes we use two or more letters to make a sound. But whatever we do, it is by putting the sounds together that we make words. And English has the most enormous vocabulary, and it is quite amazing to think that all the words of English are simply made by putting the sounds of English in different order.
有时候一个字母就代表一个发音，有时候两个或更多的字母代表一个发音。但是无论如何，通过把这些发音组合在一起，就形成了单词。英语拥有庞大的单词量，不可思议的是，英语中的所有单词都是通过把英语的发音放在不同的顺序中而构成的。
Philip:
There are very simple words like "cat" with only three letters and they make their basic sound, and then there are more difficult words like "through" which has too many letters. But what we have done with our books - our Fitzroy Readers is with creative stories that use only the simple spelling, and then gradually bringing the more complicated ones, so that, it's not ever overwhelming for the students.
有很多简单的单词比如“cat”，仅仅只有三个字母，而且发的是他们的基础音；也会存在很多复杂的单词比如“through”, 它们由很多字母组成。我们的方法是，创作菲兹洛伊系列读本故事书，先用一些简单的拼写来编写故事，然后逐渐增加复杂的单词和内容，这样对学生来说，不会让他们承受不了，也从来不会遇到什么难题。
Faye：
The interesting thing there is, when you look at text of English, you can think that many, many words are unusual spellings might special cases of English. But this is not really the case, there are about 50 that really are special cases, but other than that, it's purely the common words keeping repeating in the text. For example, the word "the" which is THE, even in a text about six words you might find two "the". So, though looking at a normal text, you might think, "Oh! Goodness me!" so many words are special cases spelling. This in fact is not the case, and this is the way we teach, we teach the special words of English gradually as we proceed through the method.
有趣的事情是，当你阅读英语文章时，你可能会认为有很多单词都是不规则的拼写，但事实并非如此，大约有50个单词确实是非常特殊的，这些单词常常出现，并不断地在文章中重复 。比如，单词“the”，也就是T-H-E，即使一句话只有六个单词，你也可能会找到两个“the”。所以，当你看一段普通的文字，你可能会想，“哦，天哪！”，很多单词都是特殊的拼写，但事实上不是这样的。我们的教学方法是，在我们的教学体系统中循序渐进地引入英语当中的特殊词汇。
Philip:
Ladies and gentlemen, these are the Fitzroy Readers. There are 90 little story books here, and starting from the simplest English right through to the most sophisticated English that in very small steps, and each time we explain one new thing about how words are spelt.
女士们、先生们，这些就是菲兹洛伊读本。这里有90本小故事，从最最简单的英语起步，一步一个脚印，直到最复杂的英语，每次我们只引入一个新的知识点，逐步诠释单词是如何被拼写的。
Faye：
We were very excited to write our first book which is A Fat Cat, simply because we use only 13 of the 26 Alphabetic sounds to write it, and we used all basic sounds to do so. By basic sound, we mean a！for apple, b！for ball, c！for cat, those basic sounds, and by putting together sounds. Well, I'll give you an example here. Here is our title A!, f! a! t! - Fat, c! a! t! - Cat, A Fat Cat. By putting sounds together, we get quite a fascinating little story. But as I said, we use just one sound for each letter, as we progress, you may remember. As I said sometimes we use two letters to make a sound, as in the word "too" in "I feel too hot", so here we have two os, which will normally look like o！o! but here it's making the sound "oo!". And the same with the word "with" over here and we have the T and the H making the sound “th!” , putting the two together to make one sound.
我们的第一本书是《一只肥猫》，这本书的创作让我们无比兴奋，因为我们仅仅采用了26个字母当中的13个来编写它，而且我们使用的都是字母的基础发音。基础发音，我们指的是apple里的a！, ball里的b！, cat里的c!，诸如此类，把这些基础发音放在一起就构成了单词。好吧，我给你们举个列子，这是书名《一只肥猫》，A!, f! a! t! - Fat, c! a! t! - Cat -- 《A Fat Cat 》。通过把字母发音放在一起，我们创作了这个精彩的小故事。正如我说的那样，每个字母只使用了它的一个发音--基础发音。随着我们持续地学习，你也许会记得，有时候我们会使用两个字母去发一个音，正如句子“ I feel too hot”里的“too”这个单词，这里的“oo”有2个“o”，两个字母o在一起并不是发出2次o的基础音，而是形成一个新的发音oo！。同样的情况，单词“with”里的“th”发出的是新的组合音th！，当这两个字母被放在一起的时候，它们不再是t和 h的基础发音。
And another thing I did mention before, with how we gradually introduce our special words. For example, if you look down here, you see two words that constantly repeated in any text of English. Down here you can see the word "the" of the definite article and another word "of", two words that constantly appear in any text of English.
我之前提到过的另一个事情是，我们如何逐渐地介绍特殊词汇。举个列子， 如果你往这里看，你会看到有两个单词不断地在任何的英语文章里重复。往下看，在这里你会看到“the”这个单词，它是个定冠词，以及介词“of”，这两个单词会不断地出现在英语文章里。
Philip:
And after these first ten story books, we have another set of ten, which teach the same principles only with more words and more interesting stories. After that , we move on to more examples of what Faye was saying before, where we use two or more letters to express a new sound. For example, let's take this book Wombat, the important sound here is ‘ay' as in day, the word "day". There are many words like day, say, pay, pray and so on, using "ay". Similarly, ‘ar’ as in mars or farm, and "ing", there are many words in English ending in ‘ing’, such as sing, thing, and ‘sh’ as in fish and so on. So, if we learn these patterns of letters one by one, we slowly get command of English.
在学习完这10本故事书之后，我们还有另外10本书，用更多的单词和更有趣的故事教授同样的发音规则。之后，我们会继续学习更多的内容，就像菲之前说的，我们用两个或更多的字母来表达一个新的发音。举个例子，让我们来看看这本书《袋熊》，这里重要的发音是ay，就像day这个单词里的ay。英文里有很多的单词也有ay，比如day，say，pay，pray......等等。相似地，ar在mars和farm的发音都是ar！，还有ing出现在英语很多单词结尾的部分，比如sing、thing，以及fish里的sh！发音等等。所以，如果我们一个接一个地学习这些字母组合，我们便慢慢地掌握了英语。
Faye:
In fact, the interesting thing is there are about 50 patterns we have to learn. So, we would say that if you learn the 26 basic sounds followed by 50 patterns. Followed by 50 special words, which we learn by sight because they don't follow rules, they are special cases, then you really have access to about 95% of English.
事实上，有趣的事情是，我们必须学习的字母组合大约有50个。所以，我们认为，如果你首先学习26个字母的基础发音，然后学习50个字母组音，再加上50个特殊单词（它们非常特殊，不遵循任何规则，必须多看几遍才能记住），那么你就能够读出95%的英语。
Philip:
So, as we work our ways through the 90 little story books, by the time we get through these, you can read news papers.
因此，当我们学习完这90本小故事书，掌握了这些技巧的时候，你就可以读报纸了。
Faye:
We have sets of we called word skills. And as you can see, the boxes are colour coordinated. So, if we are reading the orange set of books, we use an orange work book. If we are reading the green set of books, then we use the green work book. And there are about 7 work sheets for every level of reading book. We do advise teachers and parents how to do this before we read a story, so we read with certain amount of fluency. We suggest that the children do the sheets that are called sheet A and sheet B. For example, this would be sheet A and this is sheet B.
我们还配套有我们称之为词汇技巧的练习簿。正如你所看到的，盒子的颜色与练习簿的颜色是协调一致的。如果我们正在阅读橘黄色的这套读本，我们会使用橘色的词汇技巧练习簿；如果我们阅读绿色的读本，那我们就会使用绿色的词汇技巧练习簿。每个阶段的每一本读本至少有7页练习册与之匹配。我们也有给到家长和老师建议，在我们阅读一个故事之前，如何使用它们，为了保证阅读的流畅度，我们建议孩子们先完成A页和B页的练习。例如，这个是A页，而这个就是B页。
Faye：
Sheet A, as you move along, teaches the sound Philip mentioned 'ar', making the sound ar! as in car. Well, if you were doing that would be in book 19, the sheet A would deal with the ar! sound. And then the sheet B would deal with any special words that you will confront there. Having completed the sheet A and B, we then suggest reading the book. Having read the book actually is quite easy then to choose any sheets, although we suggest sheet F, because sheet F is a comprehension. “Have you understood the story?”，Sheet F asks about the story itself, and as the children progress. At first, when the little children, we just give one word answer. But by the time, they will be doing book 19, we would suggest that the children write a complete sentence. And what is wonderful about our method is that it remains the same, once teachers and parents become familiar with the first set, they know that methodology would carry them through right to the final book. Sheet A and B, read the book, answer the questions, and then as the children get older, for example, in this particular story - story 1, we have a cat, and it sits on a mat with a rat. You know of course in real life that wouldn't happen.
当我们翻到这本书的A页时，教的是菲利普提到的“ar”发ar!的音，如同car里的ar!。如果你正在做这个练习，意味着你在学习读本19，A页就会有练习ar发音的内容，然后B页会练习这本书里的特殊词汇。完成了A页和B页的练习之后，我们建议阅读读本，在阅读完这本书之后，选择任何一页练习都可以，不过，我们建议选用F页，因为F页是阅读理解部分，“你读懂这个故事了吗？” ，F页面提出的问题都是关于这个故事的, 难易程度取决于孩子们的进度。一开始，针对小龄段的孩子，我们只需用一个词来回答问题，然而，当他们读到19本的时候，我们会建议孩子们写一个完整的句子。我们的方法的美妙之处在于步骤保持不变，一旦老师和家长熟悉了第一套，他们就明白了这种教学设置会一直沿用，直到最后一本。先完成A页和B页的练习，再阅读读本，随后回答问题，陪伴着孩子们成长，例如，在《故事1》这个特别的故事中， 我们有一只猫，它和一只老鼠坐在地毯上。当然，在现实生活中这是不可能发生的！
Faye:
So the comprehension questions ask what happens in this story. But then we have suggested questions that are good for classroom discussion, once children get a little bit more fluently in English or you can do this in your mother tongue to start with: Would a cat and a rat normally sit down together pleased with each other's company?
阅读理解的问题通常会问：“在这个故事里发生了什么事情？” ，然后我们会提供一些适合课堂讨论的问题，一旦孩子们的英语变得更流利了（或者你们也可以用母语来讨论），你们就可以了开始讨论了，例如：通常情况下，一只猫和一只老鼠愿意坐在一起互相陪伴对方吗？
Philip：
Of course, they wouldn't.
当然，这是不会发生的。
Faye:
Haha! So we do hope that the children would say," They won't."
哈哈，所以我们确实希望孩子们说：“他们不会。”
Philip：
The remarkable thing is after we ran our school for several years, and there was a government assessment of all schools, and to our surprise, our children who are not selected for ability, just a mixture of children performed extremely well, very high on the list. So we thought," Goodness, we've really achieved something here."
令人瞩目的事是在我们办学了几年之后，我们参加了一个政府对所有学校进行一个测评，让我们吃惊的是，我们学校的孩子们，没有经过任何挑选，只是普通的一群孩子，却表现得非常好，测评成绩名列前茅。于是我们想，天哪，我们真的取得了一些成就。
Philip:
Pretty soon other schools were asking us, "What method do you use?" We said," Well, we invented our own." And they would say,"Give us copies, so we can have the same good results." And so we got them properly printed and we have a whole business, distributing these books to many hundreds of schools in Australia, and many more around the world.
不久之后，有很多学校开始咨询我们。你们使用了什么方法。这是我们自己发明的方法，他们就说：“能给我们一份吗？这样我们也可以得到同样好的成绩。” 于是，我们把它们出版了，然后就有了这一整个事业，将这些书分发给澳大利亚许许多多的学校，以及世界各地的许多学校。
Faye：
It's very exciting to learn a foreign language, but certainly not something that anyone can do in one night or two nights, so even one year. So to help our students we have written for their parents and teachers what we call Teacher's Guide, that can be a parent's guide or teachers' guide . Now, of course, this volume that I'm holding is written in English, but we do have the volume translated into Chinese, and this has many little activities which will make the learning of English good fun, as well as being a very accurate way to learn English. We were so surprised by our own good results that we wrote a book about our school (Fitzroy Community School), so other schools could see how we do it.
学会一门外语是非常激动人心的，但任何人不可能在一个晚上、两个晚上，甚至一年就能够达成，所以为了更好地帮助到我们的学生们，我们为他们的家长和老师写了一本教师指导。这本书可以成为一个家长的指导书或者老师的教学指导手册。当然，现在我手里的这本是用英文写的，但是我们也有中文的译本，里面包含了很多小互动，会让英语学起来很有趣，这也是学习英语的一种精确的方法。对于我们所取得的好结果，我们也感到很惊讶，于是我们将我们学校的故事写成了一本书 ，可以让更多的学校了解我们是如何做到的。
Philip:
And during that period when we first released the book, a visitor from China with spending time in Australia and she had her child in our school. And she was so impressed to what have achieved, she translated our book into Mandarin. And it's published in China.
我们这本书（《菲兹洛伊社区学校》）刚刚出版发行的那段时间，一位来自中国的访客来澳洲停留一段时间，期间她的孩子在我们学校上学。她孩子所取得的成就令她印象深刻，于是她将我们的这本书翻译成了中文（译名《神奇学校》），并在中国出版发行了。
Faye：
Yes, we certainly hope that you have an opportunity to find our books and enjoy reading it，as well as our method for teaching children to read, write and speaking English. Thank you very much and good afternoon. It's a pleasure.
是的，我们很希望你们能够有机会获得我们的书，并且喜欢阅读它。同时，希望我们的读本以及读本倡导的方法能够帮助你们的孩子们熟练地掌握英语的读、写和表达。谢谢你们，午安！
Philip:
It's a pleasure.
这是我们的荣幸。
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