The note
How schools teach it now
Schools don't usually teach 'cloze' as its own topic, but it uses skills they do teach: reading for meaning, using context clues, and checking a word fits the grammar (right tense, singular or plural, right word class). Teachers encourage children to reread the sentence with their choice in it.
5-minute kitchen-table activity
Read a paragraph from a reading book or news story aloud, pausing instead of saying one word every sentence or two. Your child suggests the missing word and says which clue helped. Accept any word that fits, then reveal the writer's choice and compare.
Worked example
Choose the word that best fits the gap: Ella was ___ when her lost cat walked through the door, and she hugged it tightly. (furious, delighted, bored, puzzled)
- Read the whole sentence before choosing.
- Find the clues: her lost cat came back and she hugged it, which are happy things.
- Try each word in the gap; only 'delighted' fits both clues.
Answer: delighted
Common mistakes to watch for
- Choosing after reading only the words before the gap.
- Picking a word that makes sense but is the wrong form, like 'run' for 'ran'.
- Not rereading the finished sentence to check it.
Encouragement
- Try saying
- “Read it with your word in. Does it make sense?”
- Rather than
- “Hurry up, it's only one word.”