Adult Cloze

This set of 30 cloze short stories is designed to provide reading and comprehension material that is appropriate for adults who have literacy skills that do not allow them to be/feel successful in their everyday lives. A number of reasons account for the large number of adults in this category. Failure in school, a broken family, illness, negative life experiences, emigration, second language English and many other causes may have contributed to their situation. Most of these adults are aware of their needs. They also often lack confidence in their reading ability and wish to improve and further develop their literacy skills.This is hard to achieve by oneself, so many adults look for support. Seeking help is a huge step.Adults who seek help may have different motivations, including getting a job or moving up the job ladder. Or it may mean gaining independence in commonplace tasks such as sitting a driving exam, writing a grocery list, reading the newspaper or doing personal banking. The main result of their efforts in literacy programs, in addition to increasing their reading skills, is the improvement of their self-image. They will be able to feel the effects in every part of their lives.How is the resource organized? The stories have been presented according to a continuum that gets gradually more difficult. They provide a variety of worthwhile reading development alternatives, using fiction and non-fiction. The contents of this resources approximately the average reading levels of 11-14 year olds. Each story is accompanied with a photo and five comprehension questions. This resource is produced in the form of black line master worksheets. Ideas for using photocopiable worksheets are suggested at the end of this introduction.What is Cloze? The cloze procedure was initially used for testing, diagnosing, classifying and identifying deficiencies in reading ability. Words are deleted from a passage and the reader is required to fill in the blanks. It is still widely used for diagnostic purposes. In recent years however the cloze procedure has also been used as an aid for reading instruction. Activities using the cloze procedure can help to develop reading and writing skills by teaching the student how to gain meaning from context clues. Cloze can also help with grammar, spelling and sequencing.How is comprehension tested?...