Read past the gap: cloze passages

What is a cloze passage?

A passage with words taken out, and your child puts them back — sometimes choosing from a list, sometimes supplying the word themselves.

It looks like a vocabulary test and is really a reading test. The question is whether your child can hold the sense of a whole sentence while attending to one gap in the middle of it.

Read past the gap

This is the rule that matters most, and it is the opposite of what comes naturally.

The path was so ___ that we walked in single file.

Stop at the gap and narrow, wide and long are all defensible. The path was so wide. The path was so long. Nothing yet rules them out.

Read on to the full stop and only one of the three survives: walking in single file is explained by a narrow path, and not by a wide or a long one.

The clue is often after the gap rather than before it. Children stop at the gap because the gap is where the question is, and that habit is behind many of the marks lost on this type.

The diagram shows the same rule on a second sentence, which is worked through in full further down. Quiet is the best fit of the three words offered, and the clue that settles it comes after the gap.

Grammar first, meaning second

Before thinking about what the passage means, ask what kind of word the gap needs. It is quicker and it works even on a sentence your child has not fully followed.

• A gap between a or the and a noun needs an adjective: a ___ voice
• A gap after a or the with no noun following needs the noun itself: she opened the ___
• A gap after had or was often needs a particular verb form: had ___ the letter

These are clues, not laws. Had can be followed by a noun (had breakfast) and was by an adjective (was tired), so look at the words on both sides of the gap, not only the one before it.

She had ___ the letter. Here had is followed by the gap and then the letter, so the gap needs a past participle — read survives and reading and reads are gone before meaning has been considered at all.

When the words are supplied

If the gaps come with a word list, read the instructions before anything else. When they say each word is used once, the question is a puzzle as well as a reading test.

That makes the gaps interact. Filling one removes an option from all the others. If the instructions do not say it, do not assume it.

So: work the easiest gaps first, cross each word off the list as it goes in, and leave the hardest until the list has shrunk. A child who works through the gaps in order is solving the hardest one with the whole list still available — which is the wrong way round.

Can you show me a worked example?

Where do pupils lose marks?

Stopping at the gap, which is the whole difficulty of the type.

Filling gaps in order when a word list is supplied and each word is used once, instead of easiest first.

Choosing a word that fits the topic rather than the sentence — a word about paths, in a sentence about a path, that does not follow from what comes after.

Try it yourself

Read each sentence to the full stop before choosing. Say what kind of word the gap needs first.

1. The path was so ___ that we walked in single file. (narrow / wide / long)
2. She had ___ the letter before anyone else arrived. (read / reading / reads)
3. ___ the rain had stopped, the ground was still soaked. (Because / Although / Until)
4. He spoke in a ___ voice, so nobody at the back could hear. (loud / quiet / cheerful)
5. Why is it a mistake to fill the easiest gap last when the words are supplied in a list and each word is to be used once?

Show Answers

How much practice does this type need at home?

Make them. Take a paragraph from whatever your child is reading, cover four words with sticky notes, and ask them to fill the gaps.

Making them is the better exercise, though. When your child chooses which words to remove, they have to think about which ones the sentence would still reveal — and that is exactly the reasoning the question asks for, done from the other side.