Teaching Sentences

[Rosie_0801]

Hi All,
What do I need for teaching sentences?

The girl is 15, but writes like an elementary student. She's working through FLL3 and WWE, and we've been editing freewrites. 

What she really needs is something to teach her how to break up sentences and rearrange them, how to insert clauses to make more complex sentences. I don't know what to say because it has always been intuitive for me. None of it is intuitive with this girl's dyslexic brain. I need something that teaches me how to see and teach the foundations in the way CSMP did for maths!

[Lori D.]

Killgallon Sentence Composing (high school or middle school) workbook, or, their new Teacher's Handbook?

@Rosie_0801 -- ETA:
A more lengthy process, but you might search different blogs and collect ideas that might work. For example:

Reading and Writing Haven blog: "Teaching Sentence Structure"
Scroll down the page and check out the cool visual/tangible trick of parts of sentences on strips of different colored paper, so you can move them around and see that you can structure sentences differently

Learning Without Tears website: "How to Teach Sentence Writing and Structure for Kids"
Includes links to some games and activities to help visualize and practice different types of sentence structures, or how to start with a simple sentence, and then add details to make it a complex or compound sentence.

Edited June 21, 2022 by Lori D.

[Rosie_0801]

Thanks @Lori D., I thought someone would say Killgallon, but I wasn't sure which to buy.

[Rosie_0801]

17 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

A more lengthy process, but you might search different blogs and collect ideas that might work. For example:

Reading and Writing Haven blog: "Teaching Sentence Structure"
Scroll down the page and check out the cool visual/tangible trick of parts of sentences on strips of different colored paper, so you can move them around and see that you can structure sentences differently

Learning Without Tears website: "How to Teach Sentence Writing and Structure for Kids"
Includes links to some games and activities to help visualize and practice different types of sentence structures, or how to start with a simple sentence, and then add details to make it a complex or compound sentence.

Yeah, I don't know how to make these work for this kid. She can manipulate patterns when she knows them, but won't discover them for herself, because her basic belief is that the world is random nonsense.

I can't figure out which Killgallon books to use. The getting started series? The sentence composing series? Ought I begin with the elementary, move on to the middle school book and see if she can make it to the high school volume? 

[Lori D.]

18 minutes ago, Rosie_0801 said:

Yeah, I don't know how to make these work for this kid. She can manipulate patterns when she knows them, but won't discover them for herself, because her basic belief is that the world is random nonsense...

Eek!

Then yes, maybe just teaching patterns of sentence structure is the way to go. I didn't know if she might need something very visual with color to help her SEE the pattern. (that was my DS#2)

 

18 minutes ago, Rosie_0801 said:

... I can't figure out which Killgallon books to use. The getting started series? The sentence composing series? Ought I begin with the elementary, move on to the middle school book and see if she can make it to the high school volume? 

I never used any of Killgallon before. Hopefully someone with experience with Killgallon will jump in.

I just bought the Teacher Handbook with the idea that I could directly use ideas out of it for group class practice when I'm teaching writing in my co-op classes... 😉

[domestic_engineer]

1 hour ago, Rosie_0801 said:

Yeah, I don't know how to make these work for this kid. She can manipulate patterns when she knows them, but won't discover them for herself, because her basic belief is that the world is random nonsense.

I can't figure out which Killgallon books to use. The getting started series? The sentence composing series? Ought I begin with the elementary, move on to the middle school book and see if she can make it to the high school volume? 

re: Killgallon -  Having used the elementary books and looked at the middle school books, the biggest difference to *me* seemed to be the models being shown.  The elementary books were classic children's literature, whereas the middle school books used more mature books.  The activities seemed to be the same for both levels.  

re: "World is random nonsense" - perhaps Michael Clay Thompson's presentation would appeal to her since he posits that the beauty of the English language is in its simplicity and order.  I just started my 3rd time through Sentence Island, so it's fresh on my mind.  Sentence Island may be too childish for a 15 year old, though.  It doesn't really go into much detail about phrases though.

 

[Rosie_0801]

5 minutes ago, domestic_engineer said:

re: Killgallon -  Having used the elementary books and looked at the middle school books, the biggest difference to *me* seemed to be the models being shown.  The elementary books were classic children's literature, whereas the middle school books used more mature books.  The activities seemed to be the same for both levels.  

Did you look at both the getting started and sentence composing series? What is the difference?

[ScoutTN]

Seconding Killgallon sentence composing for middle school.

[ScoutTN]

7 minutes ago, ScoutTN said:

Seconding Killgallon sentence composing for middle school.

Killgallon can easily be adapted to using color! I do this with several students to help them see the constructions and sentence structure. I use it with kids who don’t like to physically write - I highlight in the book and they use color to highlight when they type their work.  

[73349]

Some Yoda quotes vs. truly scrambled sentences might be useful in illustrating the ways that phrases are constructed in patterns that make sense.

[Rosie_0801]

Just now, 73349 said:

Some Yoda quotes vs. truly scrambled sentences might be useful in illustrating the ways that phrases are constructed in patterns that make sense.

Oh no. No, no, no. 
That'd just encourage echolalia in all the worst ways.

[domestic_engineer]

1 hour ago, Rosie_0801 said:

Did you look at both the getting started and sentence composing series? What is the difference?

I didn’t look at both. I went with Sentence Composing after reading posts on here. I believe Sentence Composing uses proper grammar terms where as Getting Started does not. 

[domestic_engineer]

1 hour ago, ScoutTN said:

Killgallon can easily be adapted to using color! I do this with several students to help them see the constructions and sentence structure. I use it with kids who don’t like to physically write - I highlight in the book and they use color to highlight when they type their work.  

Neat idea!  Can you post a picture of what it looks like, please?  I can see a need for this with my younger kiddos. 

[Rosie_0801]

Well, I'm glad I put in all that research! There's nowhere for me to buy the books for less than $50 each!

Thanks anyway, you guys.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Perhaps some free ideas online?  https://www.readingandwritinghaven.com/how-to-teach-sentence-structure-simple-compound-complex-compound-complex

[Melissa in Australia]

rod and staff? that is what I used with my older dyslexic boys. It is pretty boring but worked. 

it is also very religious. 

[Rosie_0801]

3 minutes ago, Melissa in Australia said:

rod and staff? that is what I used with my older dyslexic boys. It is pretty boring but worked. 

it is also very religious. 

I think that's paying for too much we don't need.

[Melissa in Australia]

Just now, Rosie_0801 said:

I think that's paying for too much we don't need.

thought so, just thought I would offer it up as a suggestion.

[Kanin]

The Writing Revolution is wonderful. No workbook, though. It's teacher led. You can find samples online.

[domestic_engineer]

8 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

Well, I'm glad I put in all that research! There's nowhere for me to buy the books for less than $50 each!

Thanks anyway, you guys.

What about the kindle version of their newest release "Sentence Composing Teacher's Handbook"?  It sounds like it's like the TM of WWE where it explains the method - and the reader/teacher can create their own exercises to implement the method.

[PeterPan]

19 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

her basic belief is that the world is random nonsense.

You've read about the theories on central coherence difficulties and gestalt thinking, right? Actually people get kind of contradictory, because there's an approach to echolalia that says the kids are gestalt learners (which sort of contradicts the whole point about how their brains actually work, but hey) and that therefore we should honor their whole to parts, top down learner, and MODEL the things we want to hear happening. It's called Natural Language acquisition theory. Personally I found it to be total crap and bogus with my ds and I looked at the same concepts and interpreted them completely opposite, realizing that if my ds was learning language whole to parts (which he was, the essence of gifted echolalia) and his brain couldn't BREAK DOWN the parts enough to get down to sounds, morphology, and individual words, then the answer was... drum roll... teach the parts.

So I just jumbled two things there. The world seems disordered when you haven't seen the whole and how things fit. Totally agree. Central coherence theory is the term for that, the idea that they're looking at parts and missing the whole. And it's kinda stupid that people then want to say those same people with central coherence issues are somehow gestalt learners for language. They're not. They're using their gifted brains to memorize parts but the parts just happen to be BIG parts because the kids are so gifted.

My ds around 10 looked like he had a lot of language, could "test" as reading at a 5th/6th grade level with multiple choice reading assessments administered by professionals, and FAILED a preschool expressive language test. The test had no multiple choice and life is not multiple choice. When he couldn't bluff it or cognitive his way out of it, the issues became apparent.

Killgallon was way WAY too hard for my ds. You can buy it and see what happens, but if she pushes back that will be why. I hope it works obviously, and for a typically developing dc it's awesome. For my dd it was completely unnecessary. For my ds with language issues and ASD2, it was not the correct next step.

I have a now out of print book on conjunctions that is the bomb for this. It sets them up for each conjunction, exploring meaning, combining the sentences, going both directions, building them, working backwards (sentence to the component parts), and working them into narratives. High end speech therapy materials vs. curriculum if that makes sense. It did things explicitly that typically developing kids do naturally. But it's oop. Let me see if I can find something.

Here, I don't know if this vendor is legit but they claim to have it in stock. At $50 that's a bargain. https://csbcanada.com/product/conversations-with-conjunctions-by-catherine-hawkins-may-m-ed/

There's also an approach called Grammar Bugs, but you could hack that yourself with paper, mercy. My ds didn't need to see it because language is not visual. SLP stuff is so STUPID sometimes, spit spit. He needed to HEAR it and he needed to ANALYZE the parts and think about them for meaning. And the book I linked does this brilliantly. All I can figure is SLPs aren't doing the intervention ,that many kids don't even get there. There's sort of this assumption that you either don't need it or did and got it early. There's not a lot for capable kids who are older who need serious syntax intervention. I've written Baalthazar and some of these amazing people doing research. Catherine May was older, old school, just hacking it out with what really worked. And it's pretty brilliant for the $50 or whatever it will end up being with conversion and postage. If Killgallon is wearing her out and not right, this is what you want. 

Edited June 22, 2022 by PeterPan

[PeterPan]

9 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

Well, I'm glad I put in all that research! There's nowhere for me to buy the books for less than $50 each!

Maybe try the samples you can see on amazon, Rainbow Resource, ChristianBookDistributors, etc. before buying. That way if it's a miss you're not out $$$$$. The May book I linked is $$$ but it's massive and super detailed. See if you can see the toc. Has like I don't remember 20+ conjunctions, each with their own set of lessons. The lessons for each follow the same paradigm (order of instruction, steps they go through), so you can go in any order or be targeted. Hits subordinating and coordinating conjunctions. 

For my ds, once the *thought process* got there, then he could go through them more easily. It wasn't that he didn't know a particular conjunction or hadn't heard it. It was that the mental process of how they worked wasn't there. So every chapter is the same process and it finally clicks in their brains. 

[Lori D.]

13 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

Well, I'm glad I put in all that research! There's nowhere for me to buy the books for less than $50 each! 

Ack!

Perhaps use parts from these free online pdf files of Killgallon books?
- Sentence Composing Tools: Phrase Review, with student practice
- Grammar for Middle School: A Sentence Composing Approach: Student Workbook
- Grammar for High School: A Sentence Composing Approach:  Teacher Book
- Getting Started with High School Sentence Composing: Student Workbook

[Rosie_0801]

8 hours ago, Kanin said:

The Writing Revolution is wonderful. No workbook, though. It's teacher led. You can find samples online.

The library has that, so I can have a look. Thank you.

[domestic_engineer]

5 hours ago, Lori D. said:

Ack!

Perhaps use parts from these free online pdf files of Killgallon books?
- Sentence Composing Tools: Phrase Review, with student practice
- Grammar for Middle School: A Sentence Composing Approach: Student Workbook
- Grammar for High School: A Sentence Composing Approach:  Teacher Book
- Getting Started with High School Sentence Composing: Student Workbook

There's also quite a bit on their website:  https://sentencecomposing.com/sentence-composing-practices/

@Rosie_0801 I think I misspoke earlier.  Back in the day, I think I was comparing "sentence composing" with "Story grammar".  The "Getting Started" series seems to be a new addition to their line since I bought the books way-back-when.

[Servant4Christ]

Just a thought: R&S remedial English course has a separate packet for just sentences. You can look at samples on milestonebooks website.

[Rosie_0801]

I've got a buddy in the US who is figuring out if she can send them to me for a not too revolting price.

 

[Ellie]

On 6/21/2022 at 3:28 PM, Rosie_0801 said:

Hi All,
What do I need for teaching sentences?

The girl is 15, but writes like an elementary student. She's working through FLL3 and WWE, and we've been editing freewrites. 

What she really needs is something to teach her how to break up sentences and rearrange them, how to insert clauses to make more complex sentences. I don't know what to say because it has always been intuitive for me. None of it is intuitive with this girl's dyslexic brain. I need something that teaches me how to see and teach the foundations in the way CSMP did for maths!

Easy Writing does something like that.