11 Plus Exams Forum

Hello,
I'm trying to get my DD to do Cloze tests. But she finds them incredibly hard. I was thinking of discussing the topic with her first, then discuss the meaning of difficult words.... before she does the Cloze test... please could someone suggest if this is a reasonable approach? Or are there any other methods of learning these tests? I worried that my discussing the topic first, I'm helping her too much...

thank you
F4T

This needs to be in the CEM section as Cloze is part of CEM.

Which cloze are you doing?

Is is Missing letter, word bank or multiple choice? DG

Moved to CEM - Mod

Talking about which, hope you don't mind me asking, any recommendations for close resources would be appreciated.
Ta!!

Cloze is a test of the student's ability to recognise which word will fit best in a sentence and how to spell words.

Students who read challenging books such as Tom Sawyer, Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden and Little Women will be more likely to have encountered the syntax of the sentence before and some of the words being used.

What book is your dd reading now?

Cloze is not difficult, in fact DAO and HBS did not have Multiple Choice Cloze last year probably because it is too easy. DG

hi Daogroupie,

She is finding missing letter hardest. She finds them hard to identify, but i think with some practice she should get there. She is reading "Prince Caspian - Narnia". Maybe afterwards, I will ask her to read one of the books you've mentioned.

Perhaps the problem is that she isnt reading enough... only 15 mins a day, 5 days a week.

15 minutes is very short and wouldn't really allow a child to relax into a book. How old is your dd?

Hi, thanks, I see, maybe she should read more, maybe 30mins minimum to an hour per day, she is 9.

She is only 9! You can't force her to read, it will take away all her enjoyment. How about reading together, taking it in turns to read a page & discuss the story?

Poor child. You will burn her out. Just start with reading for now. Once she becomes a more able reader, develop the books in terms of difficulty. Believe me that is all she needs. I wouldn't recommend starting preparation until early year 5. I started in the summer holidays which personally I think is much more pragmatic as it is daily repetitions so they store things much more efficiently.

Don't stress her at this age. Let her learning be fun and less synthesized. But again just encourage the reading, once she engages with books everything else will piece together.

Read together and let her choose from a small selection of books you think she will enjoy (so she thinks she has the element of choice but you have some say too). Make it fun. Dont try and force books that are going to be heavy going. Don’t worry about them being particularly challenging to start with, just get into the routine of having some fun but relaxing reading time together. Once she starts to enjoy reading, she might actually go off and read for herself too, but keep up with the reading together anyway.

If they enjoy reading, you won’t be able to get their nose out of a book, the trick is to help them enjoy it in the first place. They will never enjoy it if it feels like hard work or a chore, or they really aren’t interested in the book.