Summarising Text Connectives Code Breaker Worksheets offer a fun and purposeful way for students to practise identifying and using summarising connectives in written texts. This engaging literacy activity combines grammar knowledge with critical thinking and logic as students work through five structured tasks to reveal a secret code.

Each worksheet presents a different text that contains summarising connectives. Students must identify and count the connectives, complete a cloze activity using appropriate connectives, and compose their own short passage featuring the target language. At the end of each task, students record the total number of connectives found—using these numbers to crack a hidden code. It’s a creative and motivating way to consolidate understanding of summarising language.

These worksheets are ideal for use after introducing students to summarising connectives through explicit instruction. We recommend pairing them with our Text Connectives POWERPOINT and Text Connectives Posters to provide a complete teaching sequence. With three levels of worksheet included, you can easily differentiate or use the versions progressively over the course of a week.

This activity not only builds grammar and comprehension skills but also supports vocabulary development, sentence structure awareness, and writing fluency. It’s perfect for individual work, literacy centres, group tasks or homework, and is well-suited to upper primary students working on cohesion in their writing.

Key Learning Outcomes:

• ✅ Identify summarising connectives in context
• ✅ Use connectives appropriately in cloze and writing tasks
• ✅ Understand how summarising connectives enhance text cohesion
• ✅ Strengthen comprehension and editing skills through structured activities
• ✅ Develop confidence using connectives to improve writing fluency

What’s Included:

• Five-part code breaker worksheet series focusing on summarising connectives
• Three levels of difficulty to support differentiation and learning progression
• Cloze activities, identification tasks and student writing prompts
• Answer sheets for easy marking and feedback
• Links to supporting resources: connectives PowerPoint and posters

Materials Needed:

• Printed worksheets
• Pencils or highlighters
• Optional: access to anchor charts or posters on text connectives

How to Use:

• Introduce or revise summarising connectives using visual and verbal examples
• Provide students with the first worksheet and explain the steps to crack the code
• Encourage students to highlight or underline connectives in the reading passage
• Support students as they complete cloze passages and their own writing
• Use the final code-breaking element as a fun and motivating finish to each task

Ideas for Classroom Use:

• 💡 Integrate into a literacy centre rotation during a writing unit
• 💡 Assign one worksheet per day across a week for gradual progression
• 💡 Use as a fast finisher or extension task for capable writers
• 💡 Include in a grammar mini-lesson focused on cohesive devices

Top Teacher Tips:

• 💛 Display examples of summarising connectives for student reference during the task
• 💛 Encourage students to read their own writing aloud to check the flow and use of connectives
• 💛 Use the three worksheet versions to differentiate across ability levels
• 💛 Turn the code breaker into a weekly challenge with small rewards or team competitions

Summarising Text Connectives Code Breaker Worksheets make learning about connectives exciting and meaningful. By embedding grammar skills into a creative code-based task, students stay motivated while building essential writing and comprehension strategies.