Making meaning resources

Students read a boy's description of himself, identify the places in which capital letters have been omitted for proper nouns, and insert these.

Assessment focus: ability to use contextual clues to infer the meaning of a word. (There is a link to the text used for this resource in the Using this Resource section.) Reading age 9.5-10.5. SJ-4-3-2004. Text provided.

Students are assessed on their ability to identify the main idea in a text about bridge construction.

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

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

This task assesses close reading and making inferences about the setting, backdrop, props, costumes, and acting required in a performance of the Junior Journal play "Too Much Noise".

Students are assessed on their ability to find details to identify the main idea of a text about cultural change in a Pacific context.

This task assesses student ability to find the text features of a science report about moa.

Students read a personal recount about family relationships in a Pacific context. Assessment focus: the author's construction of two characters and an evaluation of them.

Students read a short extract from a legend 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 an advertisement then identify and explain some of its language features.

Students complete a cloze passage and use their vocabulary and knowledge of grammar to create well-formed sentences.

Students make inferences from a poem. SJ-2-4-1993. Text provided.

Students read a newspaper article about outdoor activities then answer some comprehension questions.

This comprehension task assesses a student's ability to make inferences about a character's feelings based on the evidence in a written and visual text, and their own prior experience.

This task assesses students' ability to analyse a text to identify and justify character traits and points of view, including the author's.

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.

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.

This comprehension task involves progressively disclosing a poem. It assesses a student's ability to use evidence to predict what it could be describing. SJ-2-4-1994. Text provided.

This comprehension task involves progressively disclosing a poem to students. It assesses their ability to infer.

A poem is disclosed in stages to students. The task assesses their ability to make inferences using evidence from text and prior knowledge to work out what it could be describing.

To answer mainly multiple choice questions, students retrieve information and make inferences from a text about Socrates.

Students read an extract about selecting suitable trees to build a waka then answer retrieval and inferential questions.

Students view a set of images to answer questions about the camera angles used and the effects these create. Students also suggest sound effects and dialogue for the images.