Teach Primary Issue 18.6

72 | www.teachwire.net sentences with meaning and expression; write sentences for a purpose. This soon became a mantra that underpinned the daily sessions – ‘hear it, say it, read it, write it’. We gave the teachers a set of sentence games to use, and from their evaluations and research feedback, identified the most successful. Here are our top ten: Spot the sentence For this game, provide a list of sentences and non-sentences, for example: It like a rat. Gary in the building. Cautiously, Gary opened the rusty door. Children discuss which are sentences and which are not, and try to fix the latter. Games such as this, which are intended for whole-class use, can also be targeted at a group who need extra teaching. Build a sentence Provide a word and ask children to use it in a sentence. Get them to ‘police’ their sentences: each one must have a capital letter and a full stop, exclamation or question mark. Keep practising until everyone can automatically punctuate. Then move to providing two words, three words or even four words. Vary the word classes to include a verb, an adjective, conjunction or preposition, etc. Vary the instructions, asking children to write, for example: • the opening line to a story I n the autumn of 2022, I tweeted a comment about how lots of children at Key Stage 2 seemed to be struggling with basic punctuation. This hit a chord with thousands of teachers – and so the punctuation project was born. Our aim was to investigate what strategies might work to improve basic sentence demarcation. I teamed up with Eve Morton, school improvement advisor for English in North Tyneside Education Services. Initially, we worked with a small group of schools to refine our ideas. Then we trialled what we had found with a second group. The project Almost all the schools had no daily system for teaching and practising punctuation and sentence construction. We established a simple daily routine, lasting about ten minutes or so. The sentence work related to the text type being taught and was focused on what the children needed as writers. We followed a simple teaching model, as shown in the panel opposite. Daily sessions hung around the notion that punctuation had to sit within the context of writing effective sentences, having an impact on the reader. To develop the ability to punctuate automatically, children need to: hear sentences read aloud and spoken expressively; say sentences with fluency and expression; read • a factual sentence about dragons • an advertising sentence starting with the word ‘Buy’ • a sentence to persuade, starting with ‘Most people believe that...’ • a sentence with three powerful verbs, such as crushed, dashed, swept Mini whiteboards are excellent for this activity, because you can give instant feedback. Get children to work in pairs, taking turns as writer or teacher. The sentence doctor This is a simple idea for practising copy editing. Provide a list of sentences that have common errors. Children enjoy being the experts and ‘fixing’ mistakes. The key is to feed off the sorts of errors that pupils themselves make. PROJECT The punctuation Pie Corbett shares lessons and tips from a successful grammar programme