Cloze test

[salsa]

I love Tolkien and read Lord of the rings when I was 8/9. The balrog still is quite scary to this day. I don't understand why kids imagination don't just run away with books like that. The images created were far better from my imagination, than even the brilliant wingnut films conjured up.

Too many smart phones and cgi, but that is another debate
PP

I think you may be onto something Petitpois. My children loved the Hobbit when my husband read it to them. Of course they loved the films too. However, my son did a Hobbit passage on Bond English and could not believe how "boring" it was. I said it was a lot of description to which he wondered why they didn't choose a "good passage" with all the action! Well, if it came up on a test, my hunch is that it would probably be a descriptive part or one talking about feelings. He would struggle with both. Give him a scientific, historic, factual, geographic or an action packed text and he'd be engaged.
I read the first Lord of the Rings book to my eldest when he was 9 and he used to fall asleep! He'd say, "skip to the action, mummy"! I didn't only because I would have had to skip almost the whole book!
These days, as you say, all that description is feed to them with amazing graphics. What can we do?
I'm sure that when we read to them they simply switch off the description. (Sigh)

[JaneEyre]

I read the first Lord of the Rings book to my eldest when he was 9 and he used to fall asleep! He'd say, "skip to the action, mummy"!

When I was child, I remember skipping the descriptions in les Miserables by Victor Hugo and in the books written y Balzac! I couldn’t bear them and needed the action too!!

However, now that (at last!! ), I start to be a more ’educated’ reader, you cannot imagine the delight that I have when I read beautiful descriptions with fantastic metaphors and well-thought personifications or other literary devices!!! Maybe it is sad that I had to wait for having grey hair to be able to have such an enjoyment (though I have always been an avid reader). It is funny to observe that my scientific mind is turning into a devotee of literature!!! oh dear! And I can listen to English teachers for hours on end, just being ecstatic at their good use of the English language! ( I am not joking; it is true to the point that a charming, passionate and altruistic English teacher is permitting me to attend her lessons though I am not her student! I am over the moon, especially that she gave me some fantastic documents )

In consequence, I am wondering if you could play a game when reading descriptions with your DC, about spotting the literary devices.. making it into a game like ‘I spy with m little eye a simile/metaphor/pathetic fallacy, bla bla bla…'
My children are too old for me to try that on them, so if you do try that game, please, keep me informed about your DC’s reaction and their progress! .. or you are allowed to think that I am a dotty old lady!

[salsa]

Thank you. I'll try, you never know.

I read Eugénie Grandet when I was 17 and at the time it made me think a lot! However my favourite was Marcel Pagnol.

About Dickens, there was a Christmas Carol dramatisation on radio 4 which my children loved, but reading passages for 11+ prep was a no, no.

Walliams, however, I have had to wrestle with them to stop them reading and go to school!

[JaneEyre]

However my favourite was Marcel Pagnol.

Oh, I love Pagnol’s novels too! The trilogy 'La Gloire de mon père', 'Le château de ma mère' and 'Le Temps des secrets' is like a rite of passage at the beginning of secondary school in France! And I really had my DS hooked with the film ‘La Gloire de mon père ‘ though at the beginning he was rather reluctant to watch it.

[salsa]

Yes, I loved the films too.

Going back to the classics. Do they really need to read them for the 11+?

[Daogroupie]

Classics are not necessary for the 11 plus. Lots of students do very well without going near the classics.

However going through classic comprehension passages with nine and ten year olds can be very enjoyable. The more they learn about the artistry of writing the more they can see in the text.

This gives them the confidence to tackle the texts they will find in the 11 plus.

This is not a requirement, just a lovely way to do it in my opinion. DG

[JaneEyre]

Going back to the classics. Do they really need to read them for the 11+?

crossed with Daogroupie - waving to Daogroupie

Which classics do you mean? The ones generally studied at GCSE like Pride and Prejudice, Lord of the Flies, Frankenstein? Personally, I do not think so and my DS certainly didn’t read them at the end of KS2.

However good reading material (also called 'Classics'!) like
Wind In The Willows
Tom's midnight garden
Charlotte's Web
The Secret Garden
The Lion, The witch & the Wardrobe,
Anne of Green Gables
etc… the list goes on with all the children books with great vocab and sensible stories. Such a gold mine!! The more the DC read, the better for them as long as it is done with enjoyment!

On another hand, some children (especially boys) succeed in their 11+ and get into superselective GS without reading books. I am having ‘reading sessions’ with such a boy who got a place for this September at CHB: a very bright boy, with a great memory and superfast transmitters between his neurones. Finally, at last, he has been hooked with a series. I told the mum: ‘he enjoys reading! This is Super Dee Dupper!!’. His reading choice is not children ‘classics’, but who cares, he reads and enjoys it!! As long as it is NOT Horrid Henry nor Diary of a Whimpy kid- two series that I would burn to ashes with a flamethrower if a child with 11+ potential tells me s/he is reading them.

Furthermore, some children with parents having a passion for literature do read Charles Dickens or Shakespeare in year 6. But I would think they are a teeny weeny tiny minority ( my DS certainly never did!).

[salsa]

Thank you both. The thing is that my children love us reading those books, but will not read them.

In spite of that, my eldest is doing very well in English. J K Rowling, for example, doesn't have pages of description at the time. She intertwines description with dialogue and suspense. I'm thinking about doing my own Cloze passages with extracts of the books.

[JaneEyre]

I'm thinking about doing my own Cloze passages with extracts of the books.

Yes, you could do that, but remember that variety is key...
A few years back, there were no books with cloze tests published in Englaind so parents had to DIY their own cloze tests!

The thing is that my children love us reading those books, but will not read them.

Have you tried reading with them but you do not do yourself the whole reading? Either one page each and you take turns, either one (or several) character(s) each if this is a passage with mostly dialogues?
Normally, that should work...

[salsa]

Yes, but they switch off in the description part. That's what the problem is, they find it boring.

Some books just have pages and pages of description and my boys are used a faster pace. I don't know why, but maybe Petitpois has a point with us living in a world surrounded by excellent audiovisual stuff.

My eldest loved the John Grisham Theodore Boone teen series.

We have done other cloze passages, but we just love Harry Potter. Maybe I'm just looking for an excuse!