Manipulatives: Sentence Combining

Overview

Full sentence manipulatives allow students to practice producing more complex Syntax and writing. As students move parts of sentences or whole sentences, they can focus their Attention on creating compound or complex sentences to help build Foundational Writing Skills. Developing writing skills also supports improved Orthographic Processing.

Use It in the Classroom

Watch as two students work together to combine simple sentences using manipulatives. Using manipulatives can support and serve as a bridge between learners of all different needs.

Teachers can have students create manipulatives from their own writing by having them cut a text apart. Providing additional independent and dependent clauses along with sentence connectors, like prepositions or conjunctions, then allows students to physically create compound and complex sentences, which also supports Speed of Processing and Long-term Memory.

Design It into Your Product

Developers can incorporate flexible, movable sentences and clauses into programs for writing. Giving students a bank of clauses and sentences reduces Working Memory load, and color-coding parts of speech can also help improve Syntax knowledge.

View References

Resources

Below are additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.

Create Your Own

Tips for creating and organizing manipulatives

Creating a Paragraph

Lesson for arranging sentences into a paragraph

Sentence Structure

Lessons and manipulatives for combining simple sentences