Adult Cloze

This set of 30 cloze short stories is designed to provide reading and comprehension material that is appropriate for adults who have literacy skills that do not allow them to be/feel successful in their everyday lives. A number of reasons account for the large number of adults in this category. Failure in school, a broken family, illness, negative life experiences, emigration, second language English and many other causes may have contributed to their situation. Most of these adults are aware of their needs. They also often lack confidence in their reading ability and wish to improve and further develop their literacy skills.This is hard to achieve by oneself, so many adults look for support. Seeking help is a huge step.Adults who seek help may have different motivations, including getting a job or moving up the job ladder. Or it may mean gaining independence in commonplace tasks such as sitting a driving exam, writing a grocery list, reading the newspaper or doing personal banking. The main result of their efforts in literacy programs, in addition to increasing their reading skills, is the improvement of their self-image.They will be able to feel the effects in every part of their lives.How is the resource organized? The stories have been presented according to a continuum that gets gradually more difficult. They provide a variety of worthwhile reading development alternatives, using fiction and non-fiction. The contents of this resources approximately the average reading levels of 11-14 year olds. Each story is accompanied with a photo and five comprehension questions. This resource is produced in the form of black line master worksheets. Ideas for using photocopiable worksheets are suggested at the end of this introduction.What is Cloze? The cloze procedure was initially used for testing, diagnosing, classifying and identifying deficiencies in reading ability. Words are deleted from a passage and the reader is required to fill in the blanks. It is still widely used for diagnostic purposes. In recent years however the cloze procedure has also been used as an aid for reading instruction. Activities using the cloze procedure can help to develop reading and writing skills by teaching the student how to gain meaning from context clues. Cloze can also help with grammar, spelling and sequencing.How is comprehension tested?The purpose of reading is for the reader to gain information from the written word. It is possible to 'say' a word accurately but get no meaning or only a limited meaning from it. Therefore, checking the reader's understanding or comprehension of the text they have read is very important. Start by asking your student what the purpose of reading is. Many will answer with phrases such as 'learning to spell', or 'saying the words'. If necessary, explain to them that the whole point of reading is to take the meaning out of the words that the writer put there. You might like to discuss the fact that it doesn't matter too much whether they read every word correctly, or whether they sound good when reading aloud.What matters is whether they take the meaning from the text. Ask the students how they will know that they have understood the text. They will come to realise that by answering the questions accurately, they are demonstrating that they have actually read the text, ie that they have understood the meaning behind the individual words.After your initial assessment of each of your students, you may find some of them need to start by discussing what the story is about, and even, in the early stages, by reading the story once or twice to them before they try reading it. Then, having read the story as many times as they feel they need to in order to understand the meaning, the student will complete the five comprehension questions that accompany that particular story.Questions test a variety of comprehension skills and go beyond basic recall. Most of the questions are inferential, evaluative or analytical.Inferential, evaluative and analytical questions require the reader to think beyond the words or to 'read between the lines', picking subtle clues that are not immediately obvious. These questions usually require the reader to write answers based on their understanding or opinion of the story, draw conclusions, make predictions, identify main ideas and use context to guess meaning. Some of the stories require the use of reference materials such as a dictionary, maps and diagrams.Strategies - Each story can be used in many ways.Here are three: The tutor reads the story to the students with the missing words included, and then lets the students do the cloze exercise using their listening memory; The students read the story and fill in the gaps with any words they want. Their answers do not have to match the listed words, as long as they make sense in the context of the story. This should lead to an interesting discussion; and, Students read the story and then fill in the gaps, with the words provided, to complete the story so that it makes sense.After they are familiar with the story, they answer the questions you assign. Many different skills can be improved using different strategies with these stories.Discussion - discussing the topic of a story before the student reads it will give them clues; discuss related aspects of a story. Reading aloud - the way a text is read aloud, and words emphasised and grouped in particular ways, will indicate a level of understanding. Word identification - some words will be known by sight and reinforced in the text. Word attack (decoding) - decoding skills must be taught so that students can apply them when reading independently.Silent reading - silent reading is a highly developed skill which takes time to master. Help them gain confidence.Repetition - students begin to recall words when reading text a second or third time. Developing skilled reading has a lot to do with reading 'mileage' - just doing the practice.Photos - clues can also be gained from the photo on each page. This isn't cheating - it's something we all do to assist our understanding of text. Context - adults have a wealth of experience which they can use. To read effectively, readers need to learn to take risks without the fear of failure. Teach students how to guess what a word means using the surrounding clues. Use the word in another context to reinforce the learning. Analysis - encourage students to read analytically, thinking beyond the written information, and relating what they read to their own experiences. Some questions can have more than one right answer, as long as the reasoning is logical.Revision - the stories can be effectively used for revision. Keep stories in a folder so they can reread their favourites regularly. Enrichment - students may find particular stories more appealing than others.When they really enjoy a story, find related stories from other sources to read. These will more likely hold their interest and speed up their learning.Photocopiable resources - The following is a list of some of the ways in which photocopiable teaching resources (black line masters or BLM) may be used in an instructional environment to ensure variety of presentation and moderation in photocopying costs. Copy the resource to A4 paper at a rate of one sheet per student. Students write on the sheet. Copy the resource to A4 paper at a rate of one sheet per group. Students work together to complete one sheet between them. Use the resource as a tutor guide only, running the exploration as a tutor-guided activity. Copy the resource to the whiteboard. Copy the resource to an OHP transparency and project it on the wall. Keep the OHP with the resource book so that tutors choosing the same resource do not have to copy the page again.Some resources lend themselves to a discussion activity, where half the class does one activity and the other half does another.They pair up to 'mark' each other's work. Copy the resource to A3 paper using the enlarging function of your copier.Use this page as a wall chart. Copy the resource 2 per A4 sheet (depending on legibility). Guillotine. Students paste the small sheets into their workbooks then write their answers or complete the activities on the adjoining pages.Copy all the pages required for the unit to A3 to form a booklet. Pages can either be retained at A4 presentation size or reduced to A5. By choosing say 8 pages to present in this way during the unit, students can each receive a small booklet at the start of the unit comprised of just one or two sheets of A3 paper folded and stapled appropriately. Present a copy of the resource to students the day before the exercise. Explain that they will be required to present this part of the unit in their own way the following day. Use peer teaching by presenting the resource to one student to teach the ideas to others.