Thinking resources

Students read a narrative and make inferences about the characters' feelings based on evidence in the text. Text is provided with this resource. SJ-2-2-1999. Text provided.

Students are required to identify whether a series of statements about the School Journal story 'Personal Mail' are true or false, and to support their opinion with evidence from the text. This task assesses students' retrieval and inferential comprehension skills. SJ-3-1-1991. Text provided.

Students read an article about the Moa then answer retrieval and inferential questions. SJ-2-3-1982. Text not provided.

Students read the letters written by four different people and identify the main idea of each letter.

This resource has students comparing four advertisements on holiday camps and identifying the meaning of a slogan.

Students use the scaled plan of a property to calculate the area of the pool, house, and lawn.

This comprehension task assesses student ability to find the main idea of a transactional text about a Māori naturalist/scientist. Students are asked to read a text, identify the main idea from three choices provided, and then justify why they think their choice is right.

Students read a story about family dynamics to answer inferential questions. SJ-3-3-1996. Text provided.

Students interpret back-to-back stem-and-leaf graphs. Knowledge of the median is required.

Students read an article about the development of safety glass to answer retrieval and inferential questions.

Students read a narrative about a family's encounter with a stray cat. They then use evidence from the text and their background knowledge to evaluate the characters. SJ-1-3-2008. Text provided.

Students read a narrative about how a girl deals with her anxiety over Sports Day. They then use evidence from the text and their background knowledge to complete the task. Assessment focus: evaluating. SJ-2-3-2009. Text provided.

The use of metaphors and similes is explored in this poem about umbrellas in a storm. Text provided.

Students read three texts and select the statement that identifies the main idea of each text.

This is a resource on sentence types. Students use four definitions of sentence types to classify six sentences.

Students read an extract from the narrative 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' and answer a combination of multiple-choice and short answer questions.

Students read a narrative then complete three tasks that focus on one of the characters. Assessment focus: an evaluation of a character and the author's construction of that character. SJ-4-3-2004. Text provided.

This practical task has two parts. The first part of this practical requires students to observe the effects of different indicators on different substances. Students use these results to identify if some other substances are acid, alkali, or neutral.

Students first do the science activity Throwing Balloons 2 (PW2548) where they predict, observe, and explain what will happen when a balloon containing another balloon filled with water is thrown. Then the students do this writing task where they describe the balloon and what happened when it was thrown, and explain why they think it moved the way it did. Six annotated exemplars of student scripts (writing) are included under the "Working with Students" tab.

This practical task consists of two parts. Students test various substances with hydrochloric acid, iodine solution, and universal indicator, and then complete a table with their observations. The second part requires students to identify four unknown solids using their tests and results from part one.

Students read a poster on sand dunes to answer retrieval and inferential questions.

From visual stimuli and a series of simple statements that describe physical attributes, students identify which animal is being described.

Assessment focus: finding important information and the main idea of an informational text. The text used is about an introduced species of fish which has become a pest. SJ-2-4-2005. Text provided.

Students read a text on shoplifting to answer retrieval and inferential questions.

Students read a poster about railway crossing safety to answer retrieval and inferential questions.