Saying the sentence aloud helps students organise their ideas and hold the sentence in their minds before they write. Over time students will no longer need to do this.
Students should be explicitly supported to use a capital letter at the beginning of each sentence and a full stop at the end of each sentence.

As they write, students are encouraged to read and check each sentence as they write, pointing to the words as they read. They are developing the habit of checking each sentence before they begin writing the next one.

At the end of the writing session, students will re-read their whole text and check that each sentence makes sense, that it begins with a capital letter, and ends with a full stop. This regular routine helps students develop the habit of planning, writing, reading and checking their own work as they write.

Teacher Modelling
Teachers will model (write in front of their students) two sentences per day. They share their thinking aloud as they model their sentences. Aim for two to three teaching goals per modelling session and explicitly draw your students’ attention to the ‘who’ and ‘do’, while reinforcing that a sentence is a complete thought.
In a whole class teacher modelling session we can teach multiple writing skills to a class in a very short time (5-10 minutes). Using the progression above, you can discuss and teach two goals explicitly, but also implicitly teach many more skills as you speak your thinking aloud and model writing in front of your students.

Dr Helen Walls (The Writing Teacher) has an excellent vlog on her Facebook page which demonstrates how to model a writing session and also how you can use toys as a stimulus for writing. She is energetic, excited and engaging throughout the modelling session.

Teacher Knowledge
At its simplest, a sentence is a group of words that communicates a complete idea. A simple sentence contains one complete idea. It includes a naming word (subject), which tells us who or what the sentence is about, and an action or description word (verb), which tells us what the subject does or what it is like. When teaching juniors you can refer to the subject as the ‘who’ or ‘what’ and the verb as the ‘do’.

Using toys in a basket is a fun, engaging way to generate story sentence ideas. For example if you find a shark in your basket, sentence examples could be:

‘The shark is swimming.’
‘Sharks have sharp teeth.’

When introducing sentence structure, it can be helpful to use a simple script, particularly when you are teaching knowledge that is new to you. Using consistent language and a clear script helps you explain sentence structure explicitly and gives students a simple framework they can use when identifying and constructing sentences themselves.

Example Teacher Script
“A sentence needs to feel like a complete thought. Every sentence needs someone or something doing something or being something. We call this a who and a do.”
Personally, I think this is a perfect beginning for our youngest students.

When students are older you can introduce them to the vocabulary (subject, verb) and that together the subject and verb form a clause.
“Every sentence needs a clause. A simple sentence has just one clause.”

Building strong foundations is essential for our students to become confident, successful writers. Explicitly teaching sentence structure in the early years gives students the tools to understand how sentences work and how to construct their own. Strong sentences are the building blocks of strong writing and investing time in this knowledge gives students a foundation that they can draw on as their writing becomes increasingly complex.