'Making sentences' tutor notes

The aim of the 'making sentences' topic area is to revise the basics of how to structure a simple sentence. The section concentrates on how to identify where sentences should end and begin in texts and what the key grammatical elements of a sentence are - i.e. the rules.

Once learners are confident making simple sentences, they can progress to the 'commas' module and / or the putting sentences together' module that practises using conjunctions to put sentences together.

How does this tie in with the curriculums?

• England
  Rs/L1.1 - 'Use implicit and explicit grammatical knowledge ... to predict meaning, try out plausible meanings and to read and check for sense.'
  Rs/L1.2 - 'Use of punctuation to help their understanding.'
  'Secure knowledge of end-of-sentence punctuation ... in helping to make sense of continuous text.'
  Ws/L1.1 - 'Write in complete sentences'.
  'Learn to recognise sentence boundaries when proof-reading their own writing by looking for where a new idea or action begins.'
  Ws/L1.3 - 'Punctuate sentences correctly and use punctuation so that meaning is clear.
  'Know all the punctuation markers for the beginning and end of sentences, and know when to use each one.'
  NB:Skillswise resources are designed for students at level 1. There is some cross-over with this module, however, with level 3 - Rs/E3.3 and Ws/E3.3. This arose because tutors have advised us that even at level 1 students have some problems with the basics of sentence construction.
• Wales
  As England.
• Northern Ireland
  As England.
• Scotland
  See www.aloscotland.com for details of the Scottish curriculum.

In the Skillswise module you'll find:

Making sentences games
There are 3 games in this module. They look and feel the same, but progress in complexity. In game 1 the learner must identify whether a line of text is a sentence or not with a simple 'yes' / 'no' option. In game 2 the learner must choose the beginning or ending that will make the text on the page into a sentence. In game 3 the learner is offered a choice of 6 punctuation-free texts to work on. Each text has an audio reading available and in each text the learner must mark out the sentences by clicking the mouse where they believe a capital letter or full-stop should appear.
In each game there is a timer option. Timing is one of the most difficult things to work out when building a game. If you feel that the game is too fast (or too slow!) then do let us know. You can contact us about this and anything to do with this module here

Making sentences quiz
The learner can choose their level. Level A is the easiest and level C the hardest. All 3 levels deal with identifying the essential parts of a sentence (verb, subject etc) and testing the learner's knowledge of the rules of simple sentence making.
Students can print out a certificate if they score 50% or more in the quiz. This will appear as a link on the results page - click on the link and the certificate will appear in a new window. Once printed students can write their name on the certificate.

Making sentences factsheet
The facts about making simple sentences, with examples, on one 'print-out-and-keep' sheet.

Making sentences worksheets
There are 5 worksheets in this section. These range from adding the correct end-of-sentence punctuation to a number of sentences, to spotting whether sentences are complete or not, to writing sentences for a letter of complaint from a selection of given words.
If you have more ideas for sentence worksheets tell us about them!

Technical help:

To get the most out of this topic area you need the following 'plug-ins':

• Flash
  The game in this topic section uses Flash. This is free to download and should only take a few minutes. You can follow the BBC WebWise instructions to download it to your machine.
  Find out more.

If you don't have Flash the same learning points are covered in the quiz and in the worksheets and factsheets.
If you are new to the web, why not try the BBC WebWise online course, Becoming WebWise? It's free, you can do it in your own time from any computer and it will take you through everything you need to know to use the web successfully in your teaching.
Get WebWise.

You can find out more about the technical requirements for Skillswise in our Help - Technical Information section.

Taking it further:

With Skillswise:
Don't forget to check out the Skillswise Lesson plans and Teaching inspirations areas for more ideas about teaching sentences.

On the web:
Here's a few suggestions of other places on the web that you might find useful resources that you can adapt for teaching the basics of making sentences.

• Job requirements game
  This is a printable resource available online. There are two sets of cards to print out - the jobs and the skills needed for those jobs. Students choose one of each to make a sentence. You could use the resource to make simple sentences, but also to extend work into more complex sentences - e.g.'Pilots must be good at languages because they travel a lot.'
• Scrambled sentences
  As with the link above, there is no information on this site about who has created it, but the game is quite good. The learner has to 'drag and drop' a selection of words into the correct order to make the sentence. The sentences seem to all be about auctions (?) so they are definitely aimed at adults rather than children. The site is a US site.

Please note that the BBC is not responsible for the content of other websites.

Do you know of any great online resources for practising sentences? Tell us about them!