Up and Away - National Council for Curriculum and Assessment

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3. Developing reading and writing skills (continued)
D. Rebuilding the text
i. Cut each strip of paper (i.e. each sentence) into individual words, being careful not to mix up words
from different sentences.
ii. Put pupils into pairs and give each pair one of the cut-up sentences. Each pair remakes its sentence
and, in turn, puts it onto the table for the group to check.
iii. The class now works together to put the sentences into the correct sequence.
E. Gap fill (whole text)
i. After rebuilding the text in the previous activity, a good follow-on is a gap fill exercise.
ii. Take out a word from each sentence and put these words together in one area of the table.
iii. Pupils work together to put each word back into its appropriate place in the text.
iv. Remove different words from the text and repeat the exercise with pupils working in pairs.
F. Gap fill (sentences)
i. Put one of the strips of paper (i.e. one sentence) on the table.
ii. On blank strips of paper write the same sentence as many times as there are words in the sentence
(i.e. for a five-word sentence, write the sentence five times).
iii. Pupils cut up the sentences into individual words, put the words into the correct order and then put
the sentence under the original.
iv. Remove one word from each sentence and put these words together in one area of the table.
v. Pupils take turns to read one of the sentences containing a gap. They identify the missing word, find
it in the group of removed words and put it into the sentence.
vi. Make this task more difficult by removing the original sentence.
G. Match the words
i. Write one of the sentences twice and cut the sentences into individual words.
ii. Make two columns of words ensuring that the words are in a different order.
iii. Pupils match the words and then work together with one set of words to construct the sentence.
N.B. All the above activities can be worksheet based. However, using strips of paper to work through the
activities has the advantage of allowing pupils to focus exclusively on reading.
Variation
The following worksheet-based activities are also useful for developing literacy skills:
Gap fill (words)
i. Write one word from the text at the top of the board.
ii. Underneath write the word as many times as there are letters in the word. In each copy rub out one
letter, replacing it with a line.
iii. Pupils take turns to fill in the gaps in the different copies of the word.
iv. Draw up worksheets based on the same activity.
Word search – see the activity ‘Making word searches’ on page 151.
Find new words – see the activity ‘Words from words’ on page 153.
Find the same word
i. Write a word from the text on the left of a page. To the right, write the word four times, once
correctly and three times differently.
ii. Pupils identify and circle the correct version of the word.
Worksheet A of the activity ‘Writing names’ on page 199 can also be used for this exercise.
More reading – new sentences from old
i. Use different combinations of words from the text to make ‘new’ sentences.
ii. Pupils read new meanings by recognising familiar words.