Writing Skills - How to Write a Sentence

TutorGiant

So what’s so hard about writing a sentence? 

     That’s what I thought before I began teaching.  It seems as if the most basic skills, like writing sentences, are sometimes the most complicated.

     There is more to writing a sentence than meets the eye.  Sure, we all know the basics of a sentence, a capital and punctuation at the end, but there are many ways to use sentences.

     You can help your child learn about the characteristics of sentences in order to improve your child’s writing.

Proper ‘sentence’ structure first!

Make sure your child always starts a sentence with a capital letter and ends the sentence with the proper punctuation (i.e. question mark, period, exclamation mark).

Have your child become aware of the various types of sentences.

There are several types of sentences:

A) Declarative sentences (also called statements) always end with a period.

B) Questions usually start with one of the 5 w’s (who, what, when, where, why) and end with a question mark (?).

C) Exclamations are used to show strong feelings. They always have an exclamation mark (!) at the end.

D) Commands (also called imperative sentences) make a request or tell you what to do.  They usually end in a period.

E) Descriptive sentences contain detailed information about something.  They usually involve sensory details.

F) Run-on sentences occur when two independent clauses are written together.

Flow!

It is important for sentences to flow together.  Having good ‘linking’ or transition words make sentences more fluent when reading.

Variety.

Your child should have a variety of sentence types (as above) in his or her writing.  Sentences should also vary in length in order to make readability more interesting.

     Having more understanding of sentences will help you to improve your child’s writing.  Make sure your child edits his/her sentences separately when editing writing assignments.

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Tutorgiant.com provides Sentence lessons with worksheets.

See some of the lessons in our video library.

DESCRIPTIVE WRITING - Lesson (A) Sentences (Grades 1-3)

SENTENCES - Lesson (A) Beginning Letters and Periods (Grades 1-3)
SENTENCES - Lesson (B) Declarative Sentences (Grades 1-3)
SENTENCES - Lesson (C) Questions (Grades 1-3)
SENTENCES - Lesson (D) Exclamations (Grades 1-3)
SENTENCES - Lesson (E) Commands (Grades 1-3)
SENTENCES - Lesson (F) Subject/Verb Agreement (Grades 4-6)
SENTENCES - Lesson (G) Run-On Sentences (Grades 4-6)
TRANSITION WORDS - Transition (Linking) Words (Grades 4-6)(Appropriate for Gr. 2-3)

EDITING AND PROOFREADING - Introduction to Editing and Proofreading (Grades 4-6)