English - How to Teach Comprehension Cloze

[tisha]

janet_lee88:

Jean.H:

This is one big-headache area! It is very hard to teach, I tried using newspapers, it helped a little, especially if you put similar stories together, like all accident type together, all health type..but the improvement is not that drastic..I think this component, the children must read and read and read!

Agree with you...very tough to 'teach' this component of English but yet still have to find a way to handle it...Comprehension cloze (fill in the blanks) is 15 marks !!!
Sometimes it can be so tough to think of a suitable word but I tell my son to read and read that sentence again to see if there might be any clue along the way. If not, just have to make do with whatever he can think of. Just like last night, I was just going through a cloze with him on NETS.

At upper pri level the clues may not be in the same sentence, they could be in the previous sentence or the next one. There are times when the clue is in another paragraph altogether.
I do not know how your child is doing in this area, my DS was getting around 8-9 out of 15. Now with westmom's tips he is able to get
11-12. It can be very stressfull if you aim for a perfect score.

[Happy Mama]

westmom:

Lots of reading on \"formal\" articles will help..My approach was:

a) read entire passage to have a feel of content first
b) read the paragraph and underline clues
c) choose 2 or more suitable words and write neatly on top in pencil
d) Select the best word by \"reading aloud\" softly because sometimes the eyes are misleading. Write in your choice.
e) if get stuck, just select one and move on (get back if got time later)
f) Read the whole passage again after putting the words and check for grammar/spelling...common mistake here and a waste of marks lost on this..

Thanks for sharing, Westmom. I used to take this approach when I was in school but somehow, it slipped my mind after so many years and I forgot to \"impart these techniques/tactics\" to my DD.

I will certainly try it out on her later this evening, and hopefully I will be able to see an improvement in her Cloze Passage.

Thanks, once again.

[janet88]

tisha:

janet_lee88:

[quote=\"Jean.H\"]This is one big-headache area! It is very hard to teach, I tried using newspapers, it helped a little, especially if you put similar stories together, like all accident type together, all health type..but the improvement is not that drastic..I think this component, the children must read and read and read!

Agree with you...very tough to 'teach' this component of English but yet still have to find a way to handle it...Comprehension cloze (fill in the blanks) is 15 marks !!!
Sometimes it can be so tough to think of a suitable word but I tell my son to read and read that sentence again to see if there might be any clue along the way. If not, just have to make do with whatever he can think of. Just like last night, I was just going through a cloze with him on NETS.

At upper pri level the clues may not be in the same sentence, they could be in the previous sentence or the next one. There are times when the clue is in another paragraph altogether.
I do not know how your child is doing in this area, my DS was getting around 8-9 out of 15. Now with westmom's tips he is able to get
11-12. It can be very stressfull if you aim for a perfect score.[/quote]Yup, at upp levels, clues are not obvious and if lucky, will appear in next paragraph. I'm working with son to improve his cloze/editing/comprehension OE.
Your son can get 8-9 correct...that's good. I dare not aim for perfection but your son's score is good enough esp if the theme is on history or some unusual topic.

[ANobleNerd]

Compre Cloze is one of those things that need a lot of general background preparation to excel in.


This means that the child need to read avidly - and read a lot of different types of texts at that.

Of course, once the child have that rich input, Westmom’s methods or any other formalised methods can help kids puzzle out the cloze.

The cloze tests whether the kids can comprehend the passage using internal text cues, the text type and their understanding of what the passage is about. Again, this won’t be easy unless the child is exposed to a text rich environment, and reads widely.

[Yerdua]

Sorry, what’s the difference between vocabulary close and comprehension close? Thanks!

[janet88]

Yerdua:

Sorry, what's the difference between vocabulary close and comprehension close? Thanks!

Vocabulary Cloze is something like synonyms...choosing words (MCQ) closest in meaning to underlined words in passage.
For Comprehension cloze, the child is supposed to fill in the blank with a suitable word.

[Yerdua]

Thks Janet for the explaination!


Yes, it’s really very difficult to teach the compre cloze especially
when ds hve selected a word, he will just mentally block all other possible ones…

[janet88]

I went through some assessment books with cloze as well as past year papers...printed out them and classified under diff themes like 'history', 'animals' etc. But still it's difficult to score well This is a 15 mark section...really wonder how to get at least 8-9 correct out of 15. Comprehension OE is already a killer and I dare not put high hopes there.

[starlight1968sg]

I have a similar problem for my dd too; compre OE and compre cloze kill!

[janet88]

starlight1968sg:

I have a similar problem for my dd too; compre OE and compre cloze kill!

I am using Teachers' Circle Eng. The Compre passages can kill !!! My son complains each time I ask him to do the practice paper. Conquer Comprehension is quite tough, esp those in 'advanced' section but not tough enough to give my son the 'real' exam feel.