Sentence Structure for Primary Students

Incomplete sentences, missed periods or capitals, and a lack of varied sentencestarters are a source of endless frustration in the writing process. How many children and teachers are tired of writing/reading stories in which most sentences begin with: Then he.... So then... But then.... The man.... He... She.... Because...? Why is it children write this way? How can it be transformed?
The first reason many children struggle with writing incomplete sentences,
missing periods or capital letters is that concrete explanations on the abstract
concept of subject and predicate are difficult to give. Teaching in this area must be
simple enough for young children to grasp, explain, and apply. Most children are able
to verbalize that a sentence can be made using: a person/noun plus a verb/action word, a thing/noun plus a verb/action word, or a place/noun plus a verb/action word. Therefore, they can write a simple sentence correctly placing the capitals and periods in a sentence which reads The clown juggled. because the example contained only the noun and verb. Should the sentence read The clown juggled balls down the street. the bulk of the class is at a loss to explain why the period comes
after the word street and not after the word juggled. To understand why the period comes after the words balls down the street instead of juggled requires agrasp of predicate. Concrete teaching on predicate can be accomplished using the question words: who, what, why, where, when and how. The question words are used to vary sentence beginnings and change sentence structure. Through oral discussion and written modelling a solid grasp of sentence structure can be laid. Application exercises reinforce the concepts until mastery is achieved.