Using language, symbols, and texts resources

Students read a narrative about relationships and wanting to impress others. Assessment focus: the author’s construction of a character and an evaluation of this character.

Students use an index page from a book on New Zealand to answer six questions.

This task is about using evidence to find the main idea of a text. Students read a narrative text with a Māori context, find two groups of details, then select the main idea from four choices. Note that the text deals with the hunting and slaughter of pigs, which may be a challenging concept for some of your students. SJ-4-2-2004. Text provided.

Assessment focus: student ability to use contextual clues in order to infer the meaning of a word. (There is a link to the text used for this resource in the Using this Resource section.)

After reading a narrative that explores family dynamics, students identify evidence in the text that supports their thinking. Assessment focus: analysing and evaluating a character and the author's construction of him. (There is a link to the text used for this resource in the Task administration section of the Teacher information pages.) Reading age 8-9. SJ-3-3-2003.

Students read a poem 'Full Moon Tiger' to answer questions about metaphor, contrast, rhyme and alliteration. SJ-2-3-1987. Text provided.

Students read an article about a boy who loves sculpting insects to answer retrieval and inferential questions. (The text used for this resource is in the teacher information pages.) SJ-4-1-1997. Text provided.

Students read part of a play called 'No Circulars' and then answer retrieval and and inferential questions. The play is reproduced in the Teacher information pages. SJ-3-2-1993. Text provided.

Students read a poem and its illustrations to answer retrieval and inferential questions. Text provided.

Students read an extract from a play then answer retrieval and inferential questions. Text provided.

Students read an article on starfish and find factual information to complete a retrieval chart and answer comprehension questions. SJ-1-2-1999. Text not provided.

Students will identify and use nouns, adjectives, and verbs to write a poem that follows the same structure as given in two examples.

Students interpret information presented in a tree diagram to calculate the probability of various events.

Students interpret a line graph of a familiar situation.

Students throw three coins, and answer questions on frequency, probability, and compare theoretical with observed outcomes.

Students state what things will affect how far a cube will travel when flicked in the middle with a ball-point pen, and conduct an experiment to see what happens in practice.

Students conduct a statistical investigation about their prediction of the most common words used in English. They make graphs, describe their shape, and compare their own graph with ones that other students produce.

Students read about creating a bird ball and respond to six short written questions which assess their comprehension of instructions. SJ-2-2-1994. Text provided.

This task assesses student ability to find the text features of an explanation of a scientific idea.

Students research and take notes in preparation for writing a biography of a famous New Zealander. Supports for this process and formative assessment points are given.

This resource centers around a poem about a cricket game. Cartoon illustrations surround the text and students use both to answer questions. SJ-3-2-1993. Text provided.

This resource requires students to answer four selected response questions on a table of contents from the book 'Antarctica'.

This resource requires students to answer five selected response questions about an index page from a book on travel.

Students answer questions based on multiplication or division by 25, and explain how they arrived at their answer.

The context of this cloze task is a story about a hungry weasel. Students generate appropriate words to create well-formed sentences.