Are you a speech language pathologist or educator looking to increase the length of utterances in your students without using visuals? Add visuals to make it more concrete for students. This building sentences resource may just be the answer you’ve been looking for! Build A Sentence is a resource where students use a variety of adjectives, verbs, and nouns to create long, silly sentences. This activity is a great way to get students playing with words but also supports their speech in that they learn important grammatical terms while increasing the length and complexity of their sentences!
How to Build Sentences
This resource boasts a 40-page full color and a 40-page black-and-white option for speech therapists and educators to choose from. I suggest laminating the colored pages for repeated use and printing the black-and-white option as-needed. Inside of the 40-pages you’ll receive:
- 6 pgs: Adjectives (24 flashcards quarter sheet-size) – includes opposite pairs and colors with easy to understand graphics.
- 4 pgs: Singular Nouns (16 flashcards quarter sheet-size) – common animals.
- 4 pgs: Plural Nouns (16 flashcards quarter sheet-size) – included so there’s no need to print out multiple singular noun cards!
- 4 pgs: Verbs (16 flashcards quarter sheet-size) – common verbs kids would use.
- 14 pgs: Grammatical Terms like Articles, Conjunctions, & Verb Endings.
Increase Length of Utterance Through Play
Are you wondering how to effectively use the Speech Therapy Sentence Building Resource “Build a Silly Sentence” to help students improve their language skills? Start by introducing the flashcards for adjectives, nouns (singular and plural), and verbs. Encourage students to explore the words and familiarize themselves with their meanings (easy to understand graphics are included on each flashcard). Structure sentence-building activities by providing prompts or sentence frames. Begin with simple prompts and gradually increase length and complexity as students become more comfortable. Incorporate games or challenges to maximize engagement, such as setting a time limit or working collaboratively in pairs or groups.
Target Language Goals
During speech therapy sessions, SLPs (Speech Language Pathologists) can utilize this sentence-building resource to target specific speech goals, like practicing speech sounds or incorporating fluency techniques. Provide opportunities for students to practice reading the long sentences they create to improve reading fluency as well as comprehension.
I’ve created this resource in both English and Spanish versions to support ELL students and monolingual students alike. Make sure to check out both versions here:
Whether you’re a general classroom teacher, homeschool parent, or speech-language pathologist (SLP) looking for a fun way to improve your students’ language skills this Build a Sentence resource that includes flashcards for adjectives, singular and plural nouns, verbs, and grammatical terms like articles, conjunctions, and verb ending is just the thing for you and your students! Also available in Spanish: Build a Sentence