Word lengths

Word lengths

Pencil and paper
Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Working with Students
This task is about constructing a tally chart and pie graph.
a)
Count the number of letters in each word in the box below. Do not count full stops (.).
Enter your tallies in the table.
   
Josh woke up really early. It was his tenth birthday. His Mum brought him breakfast in bed. Josh then opened his first present for the day. He could not believe his eyes. He had always wanted a skateboard. He rushed to school to show all his friends. That afternoon he had a party and he got some more great presents.
 
  
 
Number of letters in each word

Tally

Total
1 or 2 letters     
3 letters      
4 letters      
5 letters      
6 or more letters      
    60

b)
 
 

Put the results of your tally into the pie chart below. Label it carefully and give it a title.
 
 
 

 

Task administration: 
This task is completed with pencil and paper only.
Level:
4
Curriculum info: 
Maths, Statistics, Statistical investigations
Keywords: 
tally charts, pie graphs, graph construction
Description of task: 
Students read a short piece of text and construct a tally chart for the number of letters in each word. With these results they draw and label a pie graph.
Learning Progression Frameworks
This resource can provide evidence of learning associated with
Statistical investigations, set 5
within the Mathematics Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Read more about the Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Answers/responses: 
   

Y8 (07/1998)
3 marks
(for 5 correct)
or
2 marks
(for 3-4 correct)
or
1 mark
(for 1-2 correct)		 a)

Number of letters in each word

Total

1 or 2 letters

12

3 letters

18

4 letters

9

5 letters

6

6 or more letters

15

[Accept if based on the number of letters, i.e., 22, 54, 36, 30, 108.]

 5 correct – difficult

3-4 correct – moderate

1-2 correct – very easy
2 marks
(all proportions correct according to answers in a))
or
1 mark
(3-4 proportions correct according to answers in a))

1 mark
(title & labels given)

 b)

Numbers of Letters of Words

 all correct – difficult

3-4 correct – moderate

very difficult
Teaching and learning: 
This resource can be used to help to identify students' ability to construct a frequency table and a pie graph.
Next steps: 
EXTENSION
This exercise lends itself well to a group extension, with students counting the number of letters in passages of 60 consecutive words taken from a range of books, and comparing results.