Diagramming, identifying sentence patterns, finding parts of speech . . . every student’s favorite element of grammar, right?  How many times have you heard your child ask, “Why do I have to learn this?” As a writing teacher, I loved that question because it was always the perfect lead in to a unit on the value of sentence patterns in writing.

Using each of the different sentence patterns adds an incredible amount of interest to what you are writing.  Most children tend to stick to the same pattern: subject, then verb.  However, by simply varying those patterns, your child can turn a rather dry piece of writing into something that makes the reader want to keep reading.

Have your child try fit all six of these sentence openers into their next piece of writing and be prepared for instant improvement!

1. Subject then Verb 
   1. i.e. Hannah jumped the fence.
2. Begin with a preposition or prepositional phrase
   1. i.e. Despite her injured knee, Hannah jumped the fence
3. Begin with an adverb
   1. i.e. Quickly, Hannah jumped the fence
4. Begin with a participle
   1. verb with an –ing ending
   2. If you can master this one, you will sound very sophisticated
   3. i.e. Jumping over the fence, Hannah escaped the angry dog.d. Be sure to construct the sentence with a comma followed by the subject of the sentence along with another verb 
      1. Jumping over the fence is dangerous is very different than
      2. Jumping over the fence, Hannah escaped . .
      3. The thing after the comma must be the thing doing the “inging” 
      4. Jumping over the fence, the wire caught Hannah’s pant leg (dangling participle—the wire is not the thing doing the jumping)
      5. Jumping over the fence, Hannah escaped.
5. Begin with a clause
   1. when, where, whereas, unless, because, as, since, if or although
   2. Because the dog was chasing her, Hannah jumped the fence.
   3. As she was running from the angry dog, Hannah jumped the fence.
6. Write a very short sentence
   1. 2-5 words.
   2. Hannah jumped.
   3. The dog growled.
   4. Abby sang beautifully.

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