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VELS Level 4 – Collaborative Cloze

Collaborative Cloze: the strategy

Collaborative Cloze is a student learning activity which highlights the strategy of reciprocal teaching.

Collaborative Cloze can be conducted as a small multi-ability group activity or done as a read aloud strategy with the whole class. The text is first read aloud ensuring readers have the necessary scaffolding to access meaning from the text.

The Collaborative Cloze strategy:

  • encourages students to make sense of texts using the four cueing systems (code breaker, text user, text participant, text analyst) Luke & Freebody 2004
  • builds on the knowledge students bring to the reading situation
  • teaches students what to do when confronting unknown words
  • reinforces that reading is about meaning making and not necessarily a perfect process
  • provides a model of what good readers do when processing print - they read ahead, reread, predict on the basis of meaning, guess, test out possible options and verify that their predictions make sense - and scaffolds less confident readers
  • scaffolds and assists readers to deal with the demands of new texts and topics.

By collaborating and discussing options to complete the text, students benefit from participating irrespective of their reading level. Less confident readers may bring a lot of prior knowledge to the discussion, whereas more competent readers may provide the necessary scaffolding to process the text.

Collaborative Cloze is an effective comprehension strategy that demonstrates to readers how the reading process works. The process draws on the learner's knowledge of the content, vocabulary, grammar, and spelling.

Through Collaborative Cloze students discuss and share feedback about possible word options they are unpacking, their knowledge of the reading process, and share their multiple understandings of the text using the language of the text and topic.

This strategy encourages risk-taking and while there are many substitutions that are justifiable, readers are encouraged to examine the appropriateness of the choices they make according to the group's combined knowledge of the content and topic.

When completed as a group process, less confident learners become aware of the strategies that good readers use when predicting unfamiliar words.

Choosing text for a Collaborative Cloze activity

Any adolescent fiction or non-fiction, novel, short story, song, poem may be used for a Collaborative Cloze activity. Ensure that the selected text exists as a complete unit of meaning. It may link with the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS) domains for revising a topic already studied or assessing prior knowledge of a topic to be investigated.

Implementing the strategy

Preparation

  • select a short text - fiction or non-fiction, songs, poems
  • avoid material that is dependent upon what has preceded it
  • make sure the text can stand alone and is approximately 250-300 words
  • ensure all the class or group can see the text
  • leave the first and last sentences intact
  • the first sentence serves to establish a context
  • eliminate no more than every fifth word
  • eliminate approximately 50 words in total
  • draw lines (blanks) where words are missing - these lines should be of uniform length
  • if a particular word (that is, one that is content specific) is required, the shape of the word could replace the line
  • when these words are eliminated, the text becomes an effective means of revising the unit of work and the terminology used.

Steps

The following steps have been adapted from MyReadg 

In small groups:

  1. Students read the text through once together saying 'something' when they come to a space.
  2. They discuss possible word options. A group member lists responses in the space provided. The group then discusses the most appropriate option and circles the 'best' response.
  3. Groups bring their responses to a central location and all groups read aloud responses simultaneously. The substituted words are read as they proceed through the text.

OR

  1. Making the text visible for all, students read through the text silently.
  2. Ask students to read aloud the text substituting any word that fits when they come to a blank space. Do not stop at the word. Allow students to hear the variety of responses.
  3. Discuss the options made by groups - 'Your group used the word ... Why did you decide that was the best word for that space?'
  4. Discuss the process used for deciding on words. Explain that the process is the same as readers use when they come to unfamiliar words.
  5. Strategies such as: reading on, rereading, using context clues, guessing, predicting are all effective means of understanding and building vocabulary skills and comprehension.

Professional learning

Reciprocal Teaching - a Collaborative Cloze Activity (PDF - 16Kb) - Download this document to support the activity below.

Complete the Reciprocal Teaching Collaborative Cloze in pairs or small groups.

  • How did your knowledge of the content, vocabulary, grammar, and spelling assist you in completing the cloze?
  • What part did prior knowledge play?
  • What is the purpose of the initial reading aloud?
  • What strategies did you use to decide on the best word?

More About Reciprocal Teaching (PDF - 23Kb) - Download this guide to provides the answer to the Collaborative Cloze.