Teaching has changed significantly in the past decade mainly because teachers keep incorporating technology into the classroom. If you are teaching sentence structures to students, therefore, you too need to become innovative to ensure you deliver the knowledge your students need. With sentence fluency being an essential component of academic writing, ensuring your students can distinguish simple, complex, and compound sentences is vital. When teaching sentence structure, different tutors embrace unique approaches.

Below are different teaching approaches that teachers can embrace when teaching simple, complex, and compound sentence structures.

1. Mini-lessons

Mini-lessons are vital teaching tools that can help your students grasp complex concepts. Mini-lessons ensure you can introduce the different types of lessons easily during other lessons. This will allow your students to understand each category of the sentences comprehensively. Instead of teaching simple, complex, and compound sentences in one study, you could divide them into three separate sentences and help your students learn how to structure each.

2. Incorporating fun in teaching

Teaching no longer has to be a top-down approach where a teacher lectures his or her students. This approach creates tension between students and teachers; as a result, the students find it challenging to grasp the concepts. If you want to be effective when teaching sentence structures, ensure you add some fun to your lessons. Use appropriate games, task cards, mazes, crazy sentences, and manipulatives to drive the concept home.

3. Embracing technology

Another way you can teach sentence structures and ensure your students comprehend it is by using technology. For instance, you can use a projector to display different sentences that will help the learners to identify as simple, complex, or compound. Visuals help enhance a student’s comprehension of the concepts you teach them in class. A recent Adobe Education Exchange article said, “When students are given the opportunity to apply their knowledge through creating, designing, imagining, and self expression, their learning becomes deeper, more engaging, and ultimately more meaningful.”

4. Teaching after the basics

Teaching sentence structures can be challenging hence the need to ensure your students know the basics first. Sentences are derived from different speech types such as adjectives, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, nouns, and many others. Ensure that students understand these basic concepts before introducing them to sentence structures.

5. Be patient

Give your students time to comprehend what you have taught them before introducing them to other types of sentences. For instance, if you have taught them simple sentences, allow them to know how to construct them before introducing them to compound and complex sentences. Compound and complex sentences can be challenging to students, and you will need to give them time before they know them. Follow up your lessons with relevant exercises for the students. For instance, if you have just taught your students about compound sentences, assign compound sentence exercises to them immediately to use what they have just learned.

Teaching sentence structure does not need to be a difficult task. Evidently, you can demystify sentence structures by using mini-lessons, technology, and making your lessons fun for the student. This will always ensure your students are interested in the topics you are teaching.