Our Fox: Selecting Shades of Meaning resource is based on the picture book, Fox by Australian author Margaret Wild. It allows students to demonstrate their understanding of synonyms. The science of reading has proven that teaching semantics concepts, such as shades of meaning, helps improve students’ reading and writing.

To complete this task, students are given a list of banned words and sentences from the text. They will need to add a less or more powerful synonym of the banned word to complete the sentence.

To cater for the various needs of your class, we have included three versions of this resource:

• Version 1 prompts students to write a less or more powerful synonym in the sentence.
• Version 2 requires students to decide whether they should write a less or more powerful synonym in the sentence.
• Version 3 requires students to decide whether they should write a less or more powerful synonym in the sentence and justify their choice.