Sentence building advice sheet
As a child’s vocabulary develops, they learn to join words together to form sentences. These sentences become longer and more complex as the words used by the child develop.
To begin with your child will not use the correct grammar or little words within their sentences, they will just include the main words to get their message across e.g. ‘daddy car gone’
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Everyday strategies to support sentence building
Expand on what the child says: Add one piece of extra information. Try to vary the words you use what adding extra information. Remember to talk about colours, emotions, action words, size words e.g:
Child: “car”
Adult: “car driving” “red car”
Child: “bear”
Adult: “happy bear”
Offer a choice: Give the child a choice of what to play with/eat/drink/wear. Adapt to the
child’s level of language, for example if your child is learning to join two words together you can offer a choice with two words, if their sentence building is more advanced you can use model words in your choices e.g:
Adult: “Jumper or t-shirt?”
Adult: “Do you want the red jumper or the yellow jumper?”
Open questions: Avoid questions requiring a one word answer, such as ‘Are the children
playing on the slide?’, instead ask ‘What is happening in the playground?’ The child can
then respond with a sentence such as ‘The children are playing on the slide’.
If the child is not able to respond in full sentences yet then you can use…
Sentence completion: (Start a sentence for the child to finish) e.g:
Adult: “The children are playing on the…”
Child: “slide”
Adult: “The children are….”
Child: “playing on slide”
You could also offer them a choice of answers
Adult: “are they playing on the slide or eating sandwiches?”
Model the correct grammar: Repeat back the sentence using adult grammar. This helps the child learn how the sentence should be said. Emphasise the grammatical marker within the sentence e.g:
Child: “At school today the computer breaked”.
Adult: “Oh, the computer broke”.
Child: “Cut stick”.
Adult: “Cutting and sticking”.
Activities to use that encourage and create opportunities for talking include…
- Look at pictures in books, magazines and in newspapers. Take it in turns with the child to say something about the picture. Even with books with words, don’t forget to talk about the pictures.
- Find objects/pictures of things that go together and discuss
- Make a feely bag using a pillow case, include items from around the house that will be interesting to talk about
- Go on a scavenger hunt looking for different items
- See if the child can select either an object or a picture of one after hearing its description. You can give the description in single words, phrases or sentences; for example, a ball can be described as “black, round, bouncy” or “It’s made of rubber and you play sports with it”