Are complex sentences all that complex?

Are complex sentences all that complex? Not really! If you want to see how simple complex sentences can be for young writers, read on.

When I work with young, developing writers, I like to make new concepts seem like they’re no big deal, even if they are a bit abstract. Take writing complex sentences, for example. When you write a complex sentence, all you are doing is making two related ideas compromise a bit in the message they carry. In other words, one of the two sentences will be dependent on the other. By using a simple tool called a subordinate conjunction, you can make one of the two sentences subordinate to the other. It does not matter which of the two sentences gets subordinated, nor does the order or position of the sentences matter—they just have to make sense.

Look at this:

Because the traffic in town is so jammed, I take a different route.

Now watch:

 I take a different route when the traffic in town is jammed.

In the examples above, I have the same complex sentence written two ways. The first one requires a comma after the “Because Phrase.” The second one does not require a comma. Now, did you notice I called the first sentence in the first example a “Because Phrase?” The key to getting kids to write complex sentence is all in how you say it! When I want to see my students stretching their writing, grasping at abstract concepts, and wielding their word power, I ask them to use a “______ Phrase” to start their sentence. In the chart below, any of the subordinate words or phrases work with this writing strategy.

I might say something like:

“Okay, writers. For the next sentence practice, please write me a sentence that begins with an “If (insert any subordinate conjunction here) Phrase, followed by a comma.”

Most students seem to naturally infer that a second independent sentence must follow! I always call attention to the comma that comes after an initial subordinate sentence. If the students decide to make the second sentence subordinate, I tell them to “kick out the comma.”

I will do the same many times throughout a week of writing. I might ask for a “When Phrase,” a “Because Phrase”, a “Since Phrase,” or any of the subordinate words from the list above followed by the word “Phrase.” I don’t bother to get into all the nuts and bolts of complex sentences with very young writers, but the point is—students can learn to write complex sentences easily when you use this strategy.

The Artistry of Appositives

One of my favorite strategies to teach writers is the effective use of appositives. I like to show kids how appositives, like prepositional phrases, can create a wonderful context for the sentence.

So, what’s wrong with adjectives? 

Usually, with younger writers, we might simply encourage the use of strong adjectives to be placed in front of nouns, and the adjectives work just fine. But in order to help your slightly older kids to elevate their writing, teach them the artistry of appositives. We don’t want students to think that adjectives are the only tool in their Parts of Speech Tool Chest. There are other ways to modify nouns and pronouns. To help build an appreciation for selecting just the right way to say something, appositives are a good go-to.

A positive what?!? 

Appositives are phrases that you set off with commas, and you usually position them just after the word you want described. The appositive is really just a renaming or modified version of the word it follows. Here is an example from one of the Mover and Shaker Sentence activities featured in Shurley English:

In this case, we have the direct object noun, Jackson’s Market. Notice that I have set the appositive off with a comma just before the phrase and right after it. Then, by strategically placing the appositive just after Jackson’s Market, I have modified the direct object without listing simple adjectives in front of it. It adds a bit of zing to the sentence, don’t you think?

Give it a try.

When your young writing scholar has scraped the bottom of the adjective bucket, it’s time to refill the bucket with some appositives. You can help writers get used to this strategy by brainstorming some basic nouns and appositive phrases that do a good job of modifying them. Keep your list of nouns and appositives handy by posting a Matching Wall of Words, specially designed to help writers find just the right appositive phrases to go with the noun of their choice. Over time, the use of appositives will become second nature. So, get out there and practice the skill of writing with appositives.

What is multi-sensory education?

I have been dabbling with curriculum since I was a baby teacher and could barely crawl. If you’re a teacher, too, you probably have a similar story. I cut my teacher teeth on theories and practices from many different models, but the one that makes my brain do a happy dance is Multi-Sensory Learning. 

The system of our senses is fascinating in and of itself, but what is extraordinary is that teachers can learn how to maximize a student’s awareness of how their senses work together to help them learn and retain knowledge. I also enjoy studying up on the latest neuro-research, and once again, multi-sensory education rises to the top of my favorites list. Here’s why…

When your brain reacts to stimuli, there will be a mini-explosion of both chemical and electrical responses. The brain has both sensory (Woo Hoo!) and motor regions that must communicate with each other. These regions get gabby by means of areas called association cortices (KOR  tuh sees). These association areas are like bridges between the sensory (sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste) regions and the motor regions that direct how our bodies move. Based on fMRI images, we have learned that visual input influences sound input. Basically, what we see makes more sense if it is connected with an accompanying sound, and vice versa. We have further learned that if you combine the sense of touch with the senses of sight and sound, learning anything improves by almost 30% as compared to touch alone. That’s significant!!!

So, think about this. People learn better from words and pictures together than from words alone. If you can figure out a way to incorporate the sense of touch, then you have win-win-win as far as learning goes. Now, get this! If you take it just a bit further and want to juice up the neural connections in the brain, add the sense of smell. Advertisers have been using fragrances and aromas in stores for years to jolt the consumers’ into buying-mode. Well, why not in the field of education? Here’s an example. Suppose we are reading the poem A Pop Corn Song by Nancy Byrd Turner. This is an over-the-top obvious example, but it will make my point. The very topic of the poem should take your imagination to all the right places so that in conjunction with the reading of the poem, you will also add the following multi-sensory components: the smell of popcorn in the classroom; the sound of the kernels popping; and of course, the taste of the popcorn will delight the senses and tie them all together with the other sense stimuli. In the poem, the author even describes how to string the popcorn and make a necklace, which involves the sense of touch, too! These elements don’t have to occur in exact synchronicity, but you get the gist.

I counted myself lucky if I could get my students to buy-in to my lessons, and when I began to apply the strategies I learned from Shurley English, my language arts lessons began to soar. The kids were also getting a healthy dose of dopamine and serotonin, brain-food chemicals that the brain produces when it’s getting a charge out of life! In fact, I used to say things like, “Okay, ladies and gents, let’s make some brain food!” In just a few teachable moments, I let the kids in on a big secret…they could actually make their brains smarter simply by singing and dancing their way through all of their lessons, touching, smelling, and even tasting (when possible)—in every subject! By combining all of these strategies and initiating an event like the “popcorn” poem example, my students’ brains were firing and wiring to make for lasting learning.

I challenge you to become acquainted with multi-sensory education. The beautiful thing about Shurley English is that it trains teachers how to implement multi-sensory approaches as a natural part of the language arts lessons. It’s on-the-job training that will stick tight in your brains and nourish your ability to teach in a way you never knew you could. Your kids will thank you…and your brain will thank you!

How do I teach Shurley English in a multi-grade classroom?

When I began teaching at a small private parochial school, I learned quickly that even though I was teaching two grade levels of Shurley English in the same room, there was a disparity in the way I had to instruct each level. Each group had different developmental needs and learning objectives. Along the way, I discovered a few extremely effective strategies for teaching different groups of students that I would like to share with you today.

1. Work together. First, assess which parts of the curriculum are the same and have all your students work together. To a veteran Shurley English teacher, this is a snap. (It’s the jingles and the Question and Answer Flow!) Start with Jingle Time and have all your students work together to perfect the designated jingle. Then, move on to the Question and Answer Flow. Remember, The Question and Answer Flow never changes…it simply grows in complexity as the students gain more knowledge of the parts of speech and gain greater “sentence sense.” 

2. Provide mentoring opportunities. Be sure to capitalize on the expertise of the older students to take younger students under their wings. This is especially helpful with a dynamic program like Shurley English, because the older students’ become masters of language quickly and can often impart that knowledge even easier than you can! The older groups of students can actually instruct and tutor the younger students. (Just be sure the information and training they provide is CORRECT!) Always give your older students a crash course in student-student etiquette—you know, what to say/not to say; how much help is TOO much help, etc.

3. Raise expectations. Challenge younger students to match some of the same expectations you hold for the older students. You will have to bear in mind that, developmentally, some younger kids may not be quite up to the challenge, but they will strive with a level of determination that will astound you.

Remember, when you have a unique instructional setting, it may require you to implement some out-of-the-box thinking and that is okay! Change things up. Implement the nontraditional. You and your students are more than capable of adapting and thriving!

Writing 101: Why identifying your revision strategy is key

In an earlier post, I explained how the Sentence Blueprints we use in Shurley English provide a targeted skill practice in writing well-constructed sentences. In this post, I want to build on that idea with another exceptional strategy that bolsters our young writers’ word choices and helps them think very specifically about their writing, in general.

It’s called The Revision Strategy, and it is part of the Sentence Blueprint activity I talked about. I love the word revision, because taken literally, it means to see again. Isn’t that exactly what we want our young writers to do with their writing? Revising is like looking carefully at your writing, but seeing it with new eyes!

Notice that the Parts of Speech labels occupy the uppermost fields. The next line shows an original sentence a student might write. Below that, the student makes revisions to the original sentence. But it is the fourth field that I find the most useful because it is the place where a kid’s thinking reverts from an internal process of the mind to one that is visible to both the student and the teacher. I always value the quality and effort in the thinking process more than final outcomes when it comes to kids and their progress, which is why the work by Dr. Carol Dweck and her Growth Mindset theory is so fascinating to me.

Here, in the process of teaching students to write, we’re actually teaching them how to think. Each revision strategy has its own label, as you can see in the dark blue dots that are numbered above the example. In Shurley English, we teach students what each revision is called and how it can improve a sentence. Just as a scientist slices through a sample to view a cross-section of its internal workings, so, too is a Sentence Blueprint exercise to a young writer. Of course, this is a targeted lesson and would not be done daily. It is used primarily to draw a focus upon the process effective writers undergo when writing. At this stage in the instruction, we use very basic vocabulary and simple revision strategies to get the point across that writers usually revisit a piece of writing several times before calling it complete. Some writers revise along the way, but for our students, we cannot assume they even understand the process of how to revise—so we show them step by step!

Next time, I will share with you some of the ways Shurley English helps students take basic vocabulary and sentence structure to new heights…stay tuned!

What is cyclical spelling?

Here’s an idea to kick your kids’ spelling prowess into high gear. While it’s true that some kids are just naturally good spellers, my experience has been that most are not. They need a sure-fire way to lock in accurate spelling, especially when summer time rolls around and school is out.

Cyclical spelling might just be for you and your kids. Here’s how it works:

1. Start small.

Choose a source from which you will draw out vocabulary. It might be the word list your kid(s) used during the school year. Words can be drawn out of a book that you are reading aloud this summer, from a book your child is reading, from the newspaper, or even from video games with text narration.

Now, here’s the “start small” part…only pick one word a day! You pick it, or your child picks it—but pick only one. You will pick one word a day, but make it a fun competition between you and the whole family.

For that one word that is picked, have your players write it down somewhere fun. You can write words in sand in the sandbox, in sugar scattered on the table, or on paper with liquid jello. This is the time to get creative! The goal is for the word to be practiced at least six times throughout the day…and it MUST involve actually writing it down.

At the end of the day, at a designated time, the word should be spelled aloud and then written on lined paper. Everyone who is participating needs to have their own sheet of paper so that the list can grow.

2. Add a word-a-day.

When day two comes, pick another word and follow the same procedure for the new word. But, now enters the “cyclical spelling” approach. At the end of day two, both the first word AND the new word should be recited and then spelled correctly on the developing list.

Now that you will have two words for the spellers to spell, it’s time to pick the Teacher of the Day (TOD), who will be in charge of administering the cyclical spelling test. So, at the end of day two, someone needs to be in charge of gathering all spellers to take the Two-Word Test. The TOD will also be in charge of grading. Keep it light. You could implement M&M rewards…one M&M per correctly spelled word.

Remember, it's all about spelling AND having fun! At the end of day three, there will be three words on the quiz. At the end of day four…four words. You get the idea.

3. Keep the cycle going!

Continue to add the Word-a-Day and quizzing through all the words each day until you have five words on the list (skip weekends). Then, you will begin to drop off the very first word you started with, and it will now be omitted from the daily quiz. The next new word is added to the bottom of the list, which will, for now and until the end of the contest, contain five words to be quizzed daily.

The beauty of spelling like this over the summer is its cyclical nature. Too often, kids learn a group of words for the Wednesday Pre-Test and the Friday Final Test—and that’s it. When the next list of fifteen or so words is introduced, the first group becomes a mere acquaintance, soon forgotten. With cyclical spelling, spellers accumulate words that they have spelled (correctly!) and get the chance to work with them daily for five days in a row. This, my friends, is intensity without the tension.

Why not give cyclical spelling a try this summer…it may be a real hit with your kids—maybe even the whole family. Remember, the energy you put in is the energy you will get back out of it!

If you are using Shurley English, you engage in cyclical spelling in grades 1 and 2 all school year long. For more information about Shurley English and cyclical spelling in the primary levels, go to www.shurley.com.

Becoming a REAL Teacher

“It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept."  -The Velveteen Rabbit

When my teaching career began, my brain was full of idealism, brimming with dreams about how effective I would be, how I would influence kids and their families and MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE!!! Well, not unlike the Velveteen Rabbit, my journey was a bit precarious, but the journey was worth it. Let me explain.

It was the fall of 1987, and I was about to embark upon my first teaching assignment. The first day I stood in front of a classroom of 22 fourth graders and introduced myself as “Mr. Lutz, their fourth grade teacher,” little did I realize at that moment how unprepared I was. Sure, I had pored through all my teacher editions and written copious lesson plans in anticipation that my eager young scholars would be begging me to offer them daily golden nuggets of knowledge. The first important step, as I had been told repeatedly in college, was to get the kids writing. So, I did. After the usual first-day-of-school-getting-to-know-you stuff was out of the way, I instructed every student to pull out their journals and write their first entry. I pulled out my journal, too, because MODELING is so important. I was taught that if you write with your kids, they will feel less inhibited. They will value writing more because they can tell that I value it. I discussed a little bit about what I thought I would write about to model HOW to think about journal writing. I was on a roll! The kids seemed receptive with their smiling facings nodding how well they understood and how they just couldn’t wait to put pen to paper and reveal their innermost joys from the previous summer.

I had directed my attention to my own journal after feeling exhilaratingly satisfied with how well I had introduced our journal activity. I suppose I am glad that I didn’t notice immediately that only two or three of my fourth graders had actually started to write something in their journals. After a couple of minutes, I did the teachery thing by asking how things were going.

Crickets…

That’s when it hit me like an intercontinental ballistic missile to my gut... these kids had absolutely no idea what they were doing (and neither did I)!

I hate to admit it, but I floundered for years, trying to find the best way to teach kids reading and writing, knowing in my heart that all of the other subjects I was teaching them were dependent on these two core areas. I was failing, and I knew it, and I hated it. I changed schools and grade levels twice during those first hard years. I kept going to lower and lower grade level assignments in search of answers—answers for why my students couldn’t write a complete sentence off the cuff, why they didn’t seem to notice shifts in tense or issues with subject-verb agreement. And creative writing??? Really??? I finally ended up in a combined classroom of first and second graders. That was where I started to understand that kids were coming to school with little to no background knowledge or schema about the world of school. Many of them had never had a parent read to them past the age of three. Most of them had learned poor language habits by the time they hit Kindergarten. Writing experiences had been limited to learning how to form the letters of the alphabet. They had almost no awareness of words or the sounds that composed them. The list went on and on and on.

And then one day, I stumbled upon Shurley English, quite by accident. It was like waking up first thing in the morning after a soul-refreshing night’s sleep. In literally less than four weeks, I had first and second graders who could read a sentence aloud, tell me the subject and verb of the sentence, tell me the adverbs that were modifying the verb, tell me the adjectives that were modifying the nouns, and tell me if the sentence was a statement or a question. As the program unfolded and I followed the teaching script as if it were my bible, my little learners were identifying prepositional phrases in sentences. When I was a student in school, I didn’t learn how to do that until about the sixth grade!

When I began teaching my primary kids about the various tenets of the language, such as singular and plural nouns and verbs, subject-verb agreement, and punctuation rules in the systematic, methodical, rhythmic way Shurley prescribes, every day became a joy to me because I had literally found the proverbial key to the Secret Garden. I was finally able to teach kids how to understand language the way I understood it. Not only was teaching becoming an even deeper passion of mine, I could tell that my students were loving it, too! Those days in the classroom were glorious days for me. Let’s see…how to describe it—have you ever studied magnets? If you have ever taught fourth grade, I know you have! I remember a fourth grade science experiment I did with my very first class back in the day. We sprinkled iron filings on white paper and observed how randomly the filings were arranged on the paper. There was no order, no pattern, nothing about their position on the page was organized. Then, we gently picked up the sheet and laid it on top of a polar magnet—one that has a north and south pole. Like magic, as we centered the random pile of the spilled filings on the page over the magnet, they immediately moved into a beautiful, almost artistic pattern of curves and arcs that with a bit of gentle vibrating of the page turned into what appeared to be almost a figure eight. We were all astounded!

What does this have to do with teaching Shurley English? Well, for me, having the privilege of teaching this curriculum was just as polarizing for my teaching as that magnet was for the iron filings! What was once chaotic, unpredictable, and just plain frustrating about teaching had transformed into a logical, systematic method of helping students become excellent writers and speakers. With the help of a curriculum that contained both the content my students needed and the methodology I needed, I was finally on the right road to becoming a real teacher.

So…how ‘bout it? Interested in becoming a REAL teacher? Remember, it doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time, but with a curriculum like Shurley English, you will be able to stay the course—and it is so worth it.

Grammar Reinforcement + Sentence Building FUN!

As you near the end of your school year, it’s more important than ever to change up how you review any of the skills you want your students to retain over the summer. If you’re using Shurley English, there are many ways to add a twist to almost any concept you want to reinforce.

Earlier in the year, we showed you how to make Grammar Necklaces with the parts of speech. Here's a variation of this activity that I like to call "Team Building Sentences." (Team Building/Building Sentences...see what I did there?!?)  Here's what you need to get started:

Supplies Needed: yarn, construction paper, markers, stapler or tape

Assembly Instructions:

1.   Fold a sheet of construction paper in half over the yarn.

2. Staple or tape the outside edges to keep the yarn in place.

3. Write words on the construction paper. The more choices you offer, the more fun your kids will have! Be sure to have samples from all eight parts of speech. Here are some examples to get you started:

a, an, the

bug, lizard, leaf, log, rock

creepy, slimy, brown, scary, hairy, fuzzy, wet

under, over, around, inside

scuttled, oozed, crept, slithered, zig-zagged

Now, you can utilize these word necklaces in a variety of ways. Here are a few ideas:

1. With students wearing the word necklaces, arrange them in front of your classroom or learning space in a scrambled order. Then, when you say “Go!” have them rearrange themselves so that the necklaces create a complete sentence. You may even want to spice up the competition by giving them a time limit. Students who aren’t wearing the necklace can be the audience first, and then have everyone switch roles after one turn.

2. To help build teamwork skills, have your students who are “wearing the words” to collaborate and assemble their own sentences by traveling around, linking arms with other suitable partners whose words will help them build a great sentence. Be sure to have punctuation signs available that are not on necklaces, but displayed where they can be selected and used to make the sentences complete.

CHALLENGE LEVEL:

After you have verified that a correct sentence has been created, it’s time to jazz it up a bit by having students experiment with the four sentence types taught in Shurley English: declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory. Students will get a great grammar workout by arranging and re-arranging the “human sentences” so that each kind of sentence is created, using the same words.

The possibilities are endless! Feel free to share your ideas with us by using the comment section below.

Sensory-Based Activities for Spelling

As you approach the end of your instructional year, it’s time to pull out all the stops. It's a great time to reinforce the skills your students have learned throughout the year. Here are several cool ways to have some spelling fun:

Idea #1: Let Your Fingers Do the Learning

Tactile learners need extra stimulus through their sense of touch. No doubt, you have one or two in your bunch who learn best through touch. You can tap into their strengths by using shaving cream spread thinly on a large, solid, flat surface. Students can practice spelling basic phonemes in the shaving cream by drawing the letter symbols with their fingers in the thin shaving cream covering on the work surface. Sometimes, your kids may exhibit fine motor or gross motor issues—for instance, in their handwriting.

Idea #2: Piping Sounds and Words

Finally, for a completely edible and delicious way to review spelling strategies or phonics concepts, melt some chocolate chips and add a bit of paraffin wax to the mixture. Scoop some chocolate into plastic decorator bags or zip-lock baggies with a small hole cut out of one of the bottom corners. Announce a group of phonemes you want to review, or whole words to spell, and challenge the kids to “squeeze” out chocolate sounds and words onto wax paper. Refrigerate them after the review and enjoy eating them for a tasty and positive morsel of reinforcement!

By giving your students multiple sensory experiences with various mediums, such as shaving cream, you can review skills in a fun way and also help ease some of their frustration. Don't limit this activity to just sounds; you can have students spell out entire words, too. You can also turn this into a small-group activity and let students take turns.

Supplies Needed:

Shaving cream (foam, not gel)

Chocolate chips

Paraffin wax (the kind used in home canning)

Decorator bags or zip-lock baggies

You can always change-up the sensory activity by utilizing other materials. For example, consider using colored art sand or colored dusting sugar on a large, flat surface. Letting their fingers do the learning and the reviewing can stay with them for a lifetime if you play it up right.

Grammar Study: How it can develop critical thinkers

In a previous post, I shared my keen interest in Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences. I discussed how the Shurley English Jingles give the intelligences of Word Smarts, Picture Smarts, and Body Smarts a workout. Now, I would like to take it just a bit deeper into the next level in Shurley English.

After students master the Shurley English Jingles, the jingles become a fertile knowledge base upon which the Question and Answer Flow (Q & A Flow) is built. The Q & A Flow is a simple, pattern-based system of questions that the students learn to ask aloud orally. Yes…Shurley English teaches kids to talk to themselves; rather, to ask themselves questions—questions that elicit logical answers that their brains know to be correct, based upon what they have learned from the jingles. I call this kind of questioning “Thinking Out Loud.”

After much practice and rehearsal, using the Q & A Flow, the students then know how to analyze every word in a sentence. We call this Sentence Classification, but it goes way beyond just determining if the sentence is a statement or a question. Students learn to classify the words in a sentence based upon the specific questions they answer from the Q & A Flow. Compared to the way English grammar was always taught years ago, students learned to classify words, but usually only so that they fit into a static list of seemingly unchanging vocabulary. With the Q& A Flow, something quite different and extraordinary replaces that old system. Instead of grouping words into lists that have parts of speech headings, students learn to evaluate how specific words are actually functioning in a sentence, based on context. You see, by the old system, the word basketball is just one of the words that fits into a Noun list. But with the Q & A Flow, students begin to think in terms of the attributes of a word and its use in the context of a sentence. For example, take a look at the following sentence:

We cheered loudly at the basketball game!

Students, using the Q & A Flow, determine that the word basketball, in this context, is really an adjective. I don’t know about you, but when I am working with students and trying to help them comprehend what they read and to be able speak and to write with expertise, I would prefer their brains be adept at this kind of analysis! Can you see how a student’s Word Smarts and Logic Smarts can benefit from this kind of thinking? I consider it nothing less than brilliant.