When to Teach the Types of Sentences

Most students come to school with some awareness of how words can be arranged to form sentences. This is referred to as syntactic awareness, and you'll continue developing this awareness in your classroom. Building on this oral language foundation, you'll first teach them how to write simple sentences. Once they've learned how to do this, they're ready to learn how to write all four sentence types!

While there's no definitive research on the best order to teach sentence types, here at Reading Universe, we recommend starting with the most common sentence type and working your way down to the least common type. Here's the order starting with the most common type:

Simple Sentences → Questions → Exclamations → Commands

By pre-k students are typically using the four types of sentences in their oral language. As you read aloud to students, they listen to different types of sentences, gaining an awareness that print carries meaning. By kindergarten students begin writing simple sentences and this builds into questions, exclamation and commands over time.

Chart with language domain, skill area, and grade (pre-k through 2nd+)

Grade Level

Student example with drawing and the sentence "I like to swim."

Then in first grade, they're introduced to writing questions, followed by exclamations, and commands. Your students will continue developing these skills throughout second and third grade.

In third grade and beyond, you'll focus your explicit writing instruction on more advanced sentence writing skills. However, even as your students' writing skills advance, it's important to regularly encourage them to use a variety of sentence types in their speaking and writing.

Prerequisite Skills

Teaching the Sentence Types Begins with Oral Language

Students standing in a line outside. — *Photo by Ming Lai*

1. Model and identify sentence types in everyday conversations. Use natural opportunities throughout the day to highlight how different sentence types are used for communication. For example, as you give your students instructions for lining up for lunch, you could say,

If you're wearing blue, please line up for lunch. This is a command because I'm giving you directions.

This gives students a chance to hear a command being used in everyday conversation.

2. Build opportunities for students to use different sentence types during turn and talk conversations. Prompt students to take turns asking a question and making a statement. For example, you might tell your students to turn to a partner and ask them a question that includes their new vocabulary word, habitat. They might ask, "What is a bear's habitat like?" Their partner might respond, "Bears like habitats where there's fresh water and vegetation."

3. Highlight different sentence types in books during read-alouds. During read-alouds, pause on occasion to identify sentence types and discuss how they help readers understand the story better. For example, in the book Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney, the mother says, "Please stop all this llama drama and be patient for your mama." This is a command sentence; she means business!

When you use these strategies you're reinforcing your students' understanding of sentence types and preparing them to eventually write them.

Your students are ready to write different sentence types when they can do these things:

Identify and use the four sentence types in their oral language. You can use this activity to determine if your students have mastered this skill.
Demonstrate phonetic spelling and basic handwriting skills.
Write a simple sentence with increasing fluency. This means their accuracy is improving, and they're getting faster.

2. When to Teach the Types of Sentences

Types of Sentences

Grade Level

Prerequisite Skills

Teaching the Sentence Types Begins with Oral Language

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