When students are reading and exhibit structure errors, errors with tense, natural language or syntax, they need small group lessons related to these errors.
Structure Errors
Structure errors are all about the structure of the sentence and understanding the English language.
Structure errors are also known as syntactic errors or errors with syntax.
Structure errors are errors with natural language, grammar, language patterns, or knowledge of the English language.
Once you have determined the errors are structural in nature, the following activities are great for helping students with these errors.
1. Listen Up!
The first activity asks the students to listen to the a statement, and determining if the sentence is correct English.
Students choose a card with two sentences on it. They read the card aloud and choose the one that is written correctly.
This activity teaches the students to hear what is correct. Too often we say, “Does that sound right?” but unfortunately, many students don’t have good models for what “sounding right” should be. Their parents or adults in their lives outside of school or prior to attending school don’t use English structures correctly. They need practice determining “sounds right” and what doesn’t.
2. Order It!
The second activity is a sequencing activity.
During the visual errors post, we also used sequencing activities.
Having the students recognize the sequence of the story, helps the students in a variety of different ways.
For structural errors, students are using key words to detect the sequence.
Teaching signal words like first, then, after that, eventually, can help with verb tense.
3. Cube It!
Making sure students are using parts of speech, making a cube with parts of speech and giving the students a choice board, could allow for some pretty funny sentences that are, in fact, grammatically correct. Students will roll the cube and choose a word that is that part of speech. When they have a noun and verb, they can make a sentence. If they have a noun, verb, and adjective, they can make a bonus sentence for extra points. Making sure they have a “who” and a “did what” part of the sentence can help to determine things that are structurally sound.
4. Match It!
Understanding synonyms can also be useful to making sure students understand when they are reading. Using the cards on the FREEBIE at the bottom, students will match the synonyms. You can play concentration, Go Fish!, or I have, Who has. Students need to be able to recognize synonyms and understand the value in the match. They can make sentences with the synonyms and understand the subtle differences.
5. End it!
Another structure understanding is choosing correct end marks.
Students will use clip-it cards or sentence sets to determine the end mark and therefore, understand the structure of the sentence.
Giving students three similar sentences with different end marks and practice reading with expression will also allow the students to hear the differences in end marks.
As you can tell “Look at the dog.” has a much different meaning than “Look at the dog!”
When students can determine is the sentence is a statement, a question, or an exclamation the meaning of the sentence is clear.
6. Measure it Up!
Is the sentence whole or not? Measure it. Is it the whole orange or just a section? Students will read a sentence and measure it…is it whole or not. As the students decide that the sentences are whole or not, they can sort the cards. Students can also use the provided papers to make the phrase cards or incomplete sentence cards and make them whole.
If you’d like a FREE SAMPLE of Structure Small Group Lessons, click the link.
