Thread by @primarypercival

A thread on developing pupils' knowledge of sentence constructions....

As part of our work on developing a new writing curriculum, we have developed Twelve 'Teaching Tools' to support pupils' mastery of our sentence knowledge curriculum.

The 'tools' move from being heavily scaffolded to support early knowledge acquisition towards a set of tools that build more independent application of the grammar knowledge we want pupils to be fluent in.

As with all good things, the teaching of sentence construction knowledge begins with explicit modelling...

Next there are a range of more scaffolded exercises to support novice learners. The first of these supports pupils to identify 'Examples and Non-Examples'

'Missing Words' exercises are often used when the sentence knowledge focuses on the role of specific word classes in context.

'Dictation' helps pupils to practise punctuating sentences accurately without using precious cognitive resources to think about the content of their writing

'Fix the Error' tasks help pupils to be forensic in identifying errors and correcting them. This works well after using the 'Examples and Non-Examples' exercise.

'Sentence Jumble' is used to develop an understanding of how to construct sentences from component parts. These can be either individual words for simple sentences or jumbled phrases for more complex sentence structures.

'Complete the Sentence' is used to slowly remove the scaffold provided for pupils in a tightly controlled way. It is the pre-cursor to the next teaching tool...

'Sentence Expansion' is used as pupils develop a more robust understanding of the key components of the sentences being studied. Can pupils expand a given sentence whilst maintaining grammatical accuracy?

'Sentence Combining' supports pupils in understanding how they can construct multi-clause sentences. Pupils explore the different ways they might combine sentences and the varying effects this can have on the reader.

The scaffolds are now being removed further with 'Use the Vocab'. Pupils are now at the point where they can write a sentence following the structure taught through the other tools. Can they include a specific piece of vocabulary in their sentence?

'Picture Prompt' is used as a way of practising writing grammatically accurate sentences using a simple stimulus. The scaffold is no longer intended to support grammatical content - the picture instead provides support for generating ideas about their writing.

'Subject Knowledge Sentences' enable pupils to apply their knowledge of sentence construction independently on a subject that pupils know a lot about. This could be from their previous learning in, for example, history, geography, science, literature or art.

The 12 teaching tools are not followed in a strict sequence. Different tools are useful for learning different sentence constructions.

All of this is made 1000x times more effective by having a precise curriculum of sentence knowledge from Y1 to Y6 that sets out the micro steps we want pupils to master to achieve automaticity.
Thanks to @thesteptrust for sharing their sentence curriculum on @LaSalleEd's website