Summarising Main Ideas: Non-Fiction Cloze

Year 4 EnglishReading Comprehension3 pages

About this worksheet

Emperor penguins are the topic of this three-page non-fiction cloze for Year 4 English. Pupils fill ten gaps across four paragraphs from a word bank of twelve, so two words (desert and insects) are left over. Two short questions follow. One asks for a sentence using the word predators, and the other asks for a summary of the second paragraph. The answer key lists all ten words with example answers. It fits the England National Curriculum reading objectives on main ideas and retrieval.

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Summarising Main Ideas: Non-Fiction Cloze: Reading Comprehension - page 1

Summarising Main Ideas: Non-Fiction Cloze: Reading Comprehension - page 2

Curriculum objectives covered

Reading - comprehension

“Reading books that are structured in different ways and reading for a range of purposes”

Each of the four paragraphs keeps to one topic, so pupils see how an information text is split up.

Reading - comprehension

“Identifying main ideas drawn from more than one paragraph and summarising these”

Question 2 asks for the main idea of the second paragraph, and each gap asks for the key idea of its sentence.

Reading - comprehension

“Retrieve and record information from non-fiction”

Pupils use clues in the text, such as 'a thick layer of fat', to pick the right word from the bank.

What's inside this worksheet

Word Bank

Twelve words, including blubber, huddle, incubate and colonies. Two of them do not fit anywhere.

Emperor Penguins: Habitat and Survival

Four paragraphs on where the penguins live, how they stay warm, how the males keep the eggs off the ice and which predators they face. Pupils read each full sentence before they choose a word.

Show What You Know

Pupils use predators in a sentence of their own, then summarise the second paragraph in one or two sentences.

Answer Key

The ten answers in order, from Antarctica to predators, with an example summary about blubber, feathers and huddling.

How teachers use it

Science link

Use it in a unit on habitats or adaptations, since the text covers blubber, feathers and huddling.

Word bank first

Go through incubate and colonies before pupils start. They are the two words most likely to hold pupils up.

Summary modelling

Mark question 2 together and compare pupils' summaries with the example in the answer key.

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