Discloze

Contact: MAPE on their website

Website: http://www.mape.org.uk/

Cost: FREE

OR click here whilst the program is not available at the above site. A self-extracting archive file.

Program evaluation

I say:-

This program from Mike Matson and MAPE is the long-awaited replacement for the original Developing Tray from Bob Moy written for the BBC microcomputer in the early 1980s.

The original became a classic computer-based cloze and this promises to surpass it.

Because it can be used on-line it is accessible to anyone, at school or at home, with an internet connection. Students could tackle one of the pre-defined cloze passages at home, perhaps with parents or siblings involved.

Like all cloze passages it is probably best tackled by pairs or small groups so that the benefits of discussion about language are maximised.

I've used it with students throughout the secondary age range (11-16). Initially students' (and adults') reactions are the same, "How do you expect me to do that?" But, with a small amount of discussion about language features which can help them they soon developed the ability to reconstruct words and sentences. The links to the literacy strategy which come as part of the program are very useful and might even impress our new, teacher-friendly Ofsted?

I watched two students who were part of our Raising Achievement Project work solidly for, in one case an hour, and in the other for two hours (!), reconstructing the text. So consider. One student, reluctant to come into school at all, spends two hours working sensibly and using high-level language skills to reconstruct a text. Yes, occasional "scaffolding" was needed but much less frequently than has usually been the case.

The other student, frequently restless in lessons and over whom concern had been expressed about her language skills, spent a full hour on-task with very little support needed - and this in a small, cramped, stuffy cupboard of a room with frequent distractions.

So, like many computer-based activities, not only has this program the potential to revolutionalise students' use of metalanguage (language about language) but it can also be used as a focusing activity which helps reintroduce students to the skills needed to cope with today's often alienating, pressure-cooker schools.

Magnificent.

Program Details

Discloze is a computer-based cloze program. 

MAPE say, 

"Much of the work of developing literacy involves getting children to focus on text, to attend to its structure and to investigate, analyse and understand its features. Discloze, a new piece of software from MAPE, provides a new tool for teachers in the form of a reading activity which is highly motivating and which promotes just this sort of focus."

A text is hidden by replacing each letter with another character like a dash or a star. The task for a reader or, preferably, a group of readers is to rebuild the text by dragging in the missing letters from an alphabet box below the main text box.

Discloze comes with predefined texts and an additional utility to allow new texts to be created. Some familiarity with computers and computer conventions like editing and saving texts would be necessary here.

The program is customisable allowing such as: different characters to be used for lower and upper case letters, a scoring system, ability to "buy" letters and whether some or all of the letters are missing.

The program may be run on-line or downloaded and used off-line for those of us who work in schools with woefully inadequate internet connections.

For more detailed information on the program and how it may be used, have a look at MAPE's own guidelines at:-

http://www.mape.org.uk/kids/discloze/docs/UsingDiscloze.htm