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strategy for cloze CEM
Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 11:58 am
by MamaBear
Hello, does anyone have any tips for completing cloze style questions. My ds gets stumped by them and apart from getting him to read more I cant think of any way to make it any easier for him. I told him to quickly run through the alphabet when trying to guess the word but I suspect there are better and more quicker ways!
Eg of what he is doing.
The best chestnut brown c_ _ _ers were prised from their spikey cases and lined up for ins_ _ _tion.
( CONKERS, INSPECTION)
Thanks
Re: strategy for cloze CEM
Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 5:22 pm
by Okanagan
In case of c_ _ _ers there are only certain letters which can logically follow "c". So it won't be "cb", "cc", "cd" etc.
Start by guessing the next letter as a vowel and see if that provides any inspiration. And then others which can logically follow - for example "ch", "cl", "cr". That reduces the possibilities.
Re: strategy for cloze CEM
Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 5:37 pm
by MamaBear
Thank you Okanagan, I will try that with ds.
Re: strategy for cloze CEM
Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2013 11:35 pm
by DIY Mum
You could also just block out the whole word and ask him to work out which word he would use in that space...
sometimes, missing letters in a word can faze kids (I know I go blank sometimes 
)
Trying to work out what the sentence is saying or talking about and taking it from there, helps to trigger a stream of words.
Some kids can 'see' the word fast enough and some don't. I had to apply some reverse psychology with one of my dc. Instead of filling letters in, I got her to blank out 2/3 letters in words until she got used to seeing missing letters in words.
With dc5, (in the beginning) when he couldn't work them out, we used to 'cheat'. By that, I mean we used an electronic spell checker (Chambers- which has a missing letter feature). Adv's: it's provides a list of possible words to go by, (which they can also learn), and it saves a lot of time!
Re: strategy for cloze CEM
Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2013 6:36 am
by mystery
Get the child to use their "inner" voice while reading it including the happy words e.g. They say to themselves Kuh mmmmm urs. It can sometimes trigger some relevant words which the child can then see if they fit.
Look carefully though at the exact format your c e m paper will take for Cloze. Is this it?
Re: strategy for cloze CEM
Posted: Wed Dec 25, 2013 9:57 pm
by MamaBear
Thanks Mystery and DIY Mum, very helpful advice. I'm very grateful.
Yes its for the Bucks CEM cloze.
Re: strategy for cloze CEM
Posted: Wed Dec 25, 2013 10:35 pm
by sbarnes
I copied para's from newspapers with the odd word blanked out. DC then had to guess the word to complete the sentence. I also used paragraphs from the national geographical and also readers digest. It worked big time.
Re: strategy for cloze CEM
Posted: Thu Dec 26, 2013 2:02 pm
by MamaBear
That's a great idea Sbarnes I did that for ds1 using random books, some classics some non fiction. DS1 is wordy and likes reading, ds2 is more NVR and maths orientated so the cloze tests do not come naturally to him. Great ideas thank you so much.
Re: strategy for cloze CEM
Posted: Thu Dec 26, 2013 2:30 pm
by patricia
Hi Mamabear
The cloze you have described in your first post will more than likely never turn up in a Bucks test as it does not lend itself to a multiple choice answer sheet.
The other 2 types however will probably appear.
1] Stacked Cloze - sentence, word missing 4 words stacked on top of each other in a vertical line.
2] Find the missing word cloze - sentence, word missing 5 possibilities written in a line above the sentence (horizontal line)
Patricia
Re: strategy for cloze CEM
Posted: Thu Dec 26, 2013 9:44 pm
by MamaBear
thanks Patricia