Grammatical Building Blocks Skill Explainer

Quick Look: Oral Language Practice

Name: Quick Look: Oral Language Practice
Uploaded: 2026-08-25T12:42:35-04:00
Duration: 1 min
Description: Quick Look: Oral Language Practice

When students can rehears a sentence out loud before writing it, they can sort out their ideas, play around with wording, and build a solid sentence before adding on other demands like spelling and handwriting. In this Quick Look, reading specialist Maria Bailey gives her second graders at Riverside Elementary in Toledo, OH the opportunity to practice their new sentence expansion skill orally before they put pen to paper.

Video thumbnail for Quick Look: Oral Language Practice — Produced by Reading Universe, a partnership of WETA, Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book

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(Maria Bailey) Go ahead. Josiah, your group. What'd you say?

(Josiah) "The dog was barking because it saw another dog."

(Maria Bailey) "Because he saw another dog." I like that. That would make a dog bark. Absolutely. Ian.

(Ian) "The dog was barking because it seen [sic] a squirrel."

(Maria Bailey) Oh, it saw a squirrel. Okay. I kind of like that because that would make my dogs bark. Thumbs up if that would make a dog bark. Does that make sense to us? Yeah, I think so too.

(VO) After Ms. Bailey models a few more examples, it's time for the students to write their sentences down.

Quick Look: Oral Language Practice

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