Secondary Literacy Guide

Cloze Writing Routine

Purpose: To familiarize students with how to write English letters, write English words, and identify where those words function in the context of sentences. __________________________________________________________________________ Cloze writing exercises are embedded routines throughout lessons and provide essential familiarity and practice with the shape of English letters and digraphs, their sounds, and their usage in sentences. This is vital for Multilingual Learners, especially those whose heritage languages are not alphabet-based. Some of these exercises are teacher-led, and in later levels they are partner and student activities. When implementing these routines consider the following supports: 1. Preview the writing activity to determine difficult exercises. Identify context clues in the sentence to help students select the missing word. Consider teaching simple grammar rules (ie “a” and “an” are always noun markers). 2. Pronounce the words clearly to model pronunciation after students write it, then ask them to echo the word. 3. In early levels, consider speaking the letters of the word and identifying difficult sounds. 4. Ask the students’ to translate the word into their heritage language. Encourage them to write the word in their heritage language next to the English word either on paper or a whiteboard if possible. 5. When students write a word independently or in pairs, encourage them to say the word aloud on their own. 6. Where visuals are absent, allow students to sketch the meaning of the word, or create a visual connection to the word on the computer.