Sentence Expanding: Helping Students Build Stronger Sentences

The first step is over – your child can read a simple sentence. She knows that words have to be arranged in a proper order to make a meaningful sentence. She can identify word order and place them correctly to make a sentence. She can even write a meaningful sentence.

But the process has just begun! Your child has to learn to expand simple sentences not only to construct longer and meaningful sentences but also to ensure that they reveal more. She will have to learn to make her sentences ‘stronger’ and more ‘powerful’. Only then can the sentences be placed one after the other to write a paragraph that will draw the attention of a reader, which will then lead to a fascinating story that will echo the imagination of your child.

Related Topics: How to Help Your Child to Build Sentences?

How may this be done? Here are the steps to steer your child to expand a simple sentence and make it stronger:

• First and foremost guide your child to identify the basic ingredients of a simple sentence.
• Lead her to the understanding that the first word in a sentence begins with a capital letter, and the last word ends with an end punctuation mark.
• Point out how each sentence has a person, place, or thing (noun); and there is an action word (verb) to show what is happening.
• Now that the outline of a simple sentence is revealed, ask your child to give an example of a simple sentence. Let us assume that your child has come up with the following sentence:
• The girl sang.
• Praise your child for the correct sentence.
• Express eagerness to know more about this sentence.
• Tell her they are going to find out more about this girl and her actions by expanding the sentence to make it stronger and more powerful.
• Ask ‘Wh’ questions related to the sentence, and list the answers on a sheet of paper. For example:
• Who sang? Answer: The girl
• What did the girl do? Answer: She sang
• These two questions will be answered by your child easily.
• Now prepare her for other questions, and ask her to use her imagination to answer them.
• Ask:
• When did the girl sing?
• Where did the girl sing?
• Why did the girl sing?
• How did the girl sing?
• Elicit the answer to each question and list it on the sheet of paper. For example:
• When did the girl sing? Answer: in the morning / after school
• Where did the girl sing? Answer: in her room / in the park
• Why did the girl sing? Answer: because she was happy / because she loved to sing
• How did the girl sing? Answer:softly / happily / loudly / sweetly
• As each answer is elicited, insert it in the correct place in the sentence using a different colored pen. For example:
• The girl sang sweetly in her room in the morning because she was happy.

Practice makes perfect – so elicit more simple sentences from her, and guide her to expand them to make them stronger. Your child is now ready to write meaningful paragraphs and expand them into stories that will reflect her creativity.

Indo Scottish Global School

Dr. Swathi Menon, Academic Head, Indo Scottish Global School