Acquiring and using information and ideas in informational texts resources

Students read a visual and written text about native plants and animals to answer retrieval and inferential questions.

Assessment focus: ability to use contextual clues to infer meaning of a word. (There is a link to the text used for this resource in the Using this Resource section.) SJ-2-1-2006. Text provided.

Students read a short article about Black Holes to answer retrieval and inferential questions.

From a school newspaper interview about a school production, students complete a retrieval chart for a press release. The assessment focus is on identifying key information.

For this task students read the article, 'Chunky Chalks', and identify the ingredients and equipment used to write a set of 10 instructions for making chunky chalk. Students then identify the verb in each instruction. SJ-2-4-2000. Text not provided.

Students read a newspaper article and answer comprehension and vocabulary questions.

Students read acknowledgement text from a journal and answer questions about acknowledgements.

Students read an article about shoeing a horse and find information from it to complete a retrieval chart.

Students read an article on parachuting and complete a retrieval chart and answer comprehension questions.

Students use the information in an article to interpret the body language of cats in nine different pictures. This task assesses student ability to bring together written and visual texts to show their comprehension. The text is reproduced in the Teacher information pages. SJ-3-1-1990. Text not provided.

Students are assessed on their ability to find details to identify the main idea of a text about conservation projects for endangered species.

Assessment focus: finding details to support the main idea of an informational text, and justifying why they agree or disagree with the main idea presented. The text used is about environmental issues to do with endangered native species.

This comprehension task assesses student ability to find details that relate to the main idea of a text about a Māori naturalist/scientist. Students are asked to read a text, find details about the given main idea, then justify why they think the main idea is right or wrong.

Students read an article on a town hall pipe organ and answer related questions. SJ-3-2-1985. Text provided.

This task assesses student ability to find the text features of a science report about one of our native birds. The task is essentially a literacy task in the context of scientific writing, and can also be accessed from the English Bank.

Students read an article on kiwi and answer multiple choice questions that focus on inference and information retrieval.

Students read a recount about New Zealanders travelling in Africa, then answer retrieval and inference questions. The text is provided.

Students study a recipe then answer questions showing their understanding of written instructions.

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 about cooking food in hot pools to answer inference questions. SJ-1-5-1992. Text provided.

This resource has the parts of an article (on flight) numbered and assesses the student knowledge about where to locate different sorts of information in the article.

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

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

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