Suggestions for improving your reading skills

• Make it a habit to read texts in the foreign language. You may start with children's stories and move on to newspaper articles, magazines and books for adults.

• Choose books, newspapers and magazines according to your personal interests and needs.

• Buy a bilingual book or buy the same book in your native language and in the foreign language. When reading, compare the books when there is something that you don't understand.

• Most of the time it is not necessary to understand every single word when reading a text. So don‘t panic if there are a few words you don‘t know. You may try to guess their meaning from the context.

• If there are words that you don't know but you think are important, look them up in a dictionary and write them down. Study them again after reading.

• If your reading purpose is to find out specific information, think about some key words first, then scan the text to find these key words. Underline important words and phrases. You may also take notes.

• If your purpose is to generally understand the text, underline important phrases in each paragraph and write down the most important things.

Vocabulary practice

1. Give the English equivalents to the following words and phrases.

Поддержка и любовь, гармоничная семья, семейные ценности, родительская власть, стабильная брак, целомудрие, забота о престарелых, нуклеарная семья, расширенная семья, поколение, члены семьи/домочадцы, здоровое общество, стабильная семейная жизнь, упадок, неполная семья, высокий уровень разводов, два основных типа семьи, реклама, недостаток дисциплины, воспитывать детей, кровь.

2. Make up word combinations and use them in sentences or situations of your own.

single	marriage
working	children
the only	child
to spoil	parents
to bring up	a child
to run	gap
to get	values
generation	family life
family	family
nuclear	rate
stable	divorce
divorce	mother

3.Explain in English by matching a and b parts.

A	B
nuclear family	the adults have divorced and remarried, bringing children from other unions together to form a new nuclear family
immediate family	a family which only has one parent (because the parents are divorced, or because one of the parents has died):
step family	parents and their children living in the same residence or sharing the closest bonds
adopted family	includes all relatives ( grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins) living together and sharing daily household duties
single-parent / one-parent family	your closest relative
foster family	two parents may adopt a child to whom they share no blood relationship, or one parent may adopt the child of the other parent.
extended family	one or more adult parent who serves as a temporary guardian for one or more children to whom they may or may not be biologically related.