Chapter 1: Key reading skills

1.4 Synthesis
Resources:
 Student’s Book: 1.4, pp. 16–19
 Workbook: 1.4, pp. 15–17 can be set as homework
 Worksheet 1.4
 PowerPoint slides 1.4a–d

Assessment objectives:
R5 Select and use information for specific purposes

EXPLORE THE SKILLS

As a class, read through this section on page 16 of the Student’s Book, checking that students understand
the term ‘synthesis’ and asking them to come up with other examples from everyday life. Read the Top tip
and get pairs to complete the sorting task in Q1, checking their understanding via class feedback.

BUILD THE SKILLS

Read through this section of the Student’s Book, then hand out Worksheet 1.4 for Q2. As a class, read
through the extract and ask students to underline and number all the different statements about the problems
caused by extreme weather conditions. Tell them to be as thorough as possible, highlighting each idea when
they come to it and not worrying about any repetition of information. Explain that they should be able to
underline and number about 20 phrases from the main extract.
Take feedback and, as you go through the answers, ask students to underline and number any that they
missed. (It doesn’t matter if their numbers are in a different order to the ones here.) Students should have
found:
1) can overturn caravans 12) flooding and storm surges can destroy buildings
2) tear off roofs 13) and [destroy] roads
3) topple trees 14) contaminate water supplies
4) causing extreme distress to many people 15) halt other essential services
5) and financial hardship to whole communities 16) and drown people
6) some of the strongest tornadoes can demolish 17) large hail stones can damage cars and roofs
houses completely 18) and destroy crops
7) leaving people homeless 19) but rarely kill people
8) and vulnerable to disease 20) heat waves can lead to drought
9) and criminal harm 21) which causes crop loss
10) people may be knocked down or struck by 22) as well as health issues
debris
23) and death from dehydration.
11) and many places may lose electricity

DEVELOP THE SKILLS

Explain that, by grouping ideas together when making notes from a text, you can save valuable time. Discuss
how this can be done after all the ideas have been selected, but that it is much more efficient to do it while
students are selecting their ideas.
For Q3, ask students to reread the text on Worksheet 1.4 in pairs. As they read, they should put the phrases
that they have numbered under different headings in the boxes provided. They need to decide whether each
of their numbered phrases needs a new heading or goes under a heading that they have already created.
Come up with between five to nine headings.
Feed back and discuss the different headings that the students have come up with. Groupings might include:

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 Chapter 1: Key reading skills

 destruction of property (1, 2, 6, 12)  short-term effects on communities (4, 7, 11, 13,
15)
 damage to nature (3, 18)
 social problems (9)
 other dangers to people (10, 16, 17, 19)
 wider effects on communities (5, 20, 21, 23).
 problems with health and hygiene (8, 14, 22)

These can be shown to students, to compare with their own ideas, using PPT 1.4a.

Extra challenge: Ask students to order their points within their headings and consider whether any
points overlap (for example, dehydration could be a health problem as well as a wider effect after
possible heat waves).

APPLY THE SKILLS

As a class, read through the sample directed writing task in Q4 and ask students to complete the note-
making task. Students’ notes might include:
Problems arising:
 injury or loss of life  loss of infrastructure
 damage to, or destruction of, homes  spread of disease
 financial hardship  crop damage
 flooding, but also drought  crime.

What can be done in advance:

 have stockpiles of supplies, fresh water, medicines, tents, pipes
 individuals to take out private insurance
 have trained and equipped rapid response teams.

What needs to be done after the disaster:

 rapid response teams search for survivors, treat injured and remove debris
 set up temporary homes
 distribute emergency supplies
 fix broken water pipes and ensure clean water
 deploy extra police to deal with looting
 warn locals of how to deal with heat waves, including support for the vulnerable.
Feed back as a class; the points above can be shown using PPT 1.4b–d. Ask students to share their work
and use the Sound progress and Excellent progress criteria on page 50 of the Student’s Book (bullet 3) to
assess how well they have done.

TAKING IT Students need to select and sort a full range of information from multiple
FURTHER sources. They need to be able to arrange their information in a cohesive and
highly convincing manner. To practise this, they could:
 read news stories on the same topic from different papers and synthesise
the key information.
 synthesise descriptions of a place in two different travel guides
 write short biographies of a celebrity synthesising information from two
different online sources.

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