Cloze Procedure

Middle elementary students and above, however, adaptations could be made for younger children.

• Reinforces English language structures
• Reinforces reading skills
• Reinforces metalinguistic skills

Strategy steps:

1. Develop a cloze passage omitting every 7th (or 8th or 10th) word, for example:
2. Have the students read the entire passage before they start filling in the blanks.
3. When they are done, students compare their work with a projection of the complete story and circle any words that are incorrect.
4. Conference with each student regarding incorrect responses noting if he/she used a word in the same syntactic class (substituting a noun for a noun, a verb for a verb, etc.) and whether or not the meaning was similar to the correct response.
5. Provide individual instruction specific to the student’s responses.

For younger children:

Develop a cloze passage (MAZE) omitting a limited selection of words, for example, nouns or the main verb of the sentence, giving options for the responses. For example:

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