Understanding Sentences
Aims
This activity is designed to:
- test your child's ability to read sentences
- test your child's understanding of sentences
- encourage your child to pay attention and join in a learning activity for short periods of time
When to use this activity
Use this activity to test that your child can read and understand the sentences in the book you are working on.
Testing understanding
When teaching the simpler sentences with repetitive carrier phrases, you cannot fully verify the child's understanding of the sentence as they can generally select the correct picture if they can read the single noun or verb attached to the carrier phrase. We still recommend that you work through this activity for those books, encouraging your child to practice reading each whole sentence and ensuring that they can identify the word in the sentence they need to choose between alternative pictures.
When teaching books including sentences with more complex grammar, you should choose alternatives that contrast the grammar rule being taught. For example, with the Girls and boys book (8) you might choose to present "The boy is reading" and the "The boys are reading" together. To correctly identify the pictures these sentences match, your child will need to understand that one refers to a boy and one refers to more than one boy.
To more fully test your child's understanding of the sentences, you can increase the number of choices to present. Again, you should choose alternatives that contrast the vocabulary and grammar rules being taught. Following from the example above, with the Girls and boys book (8) you might choose to present "The boy is reading", "The boys are reading", "The girl is reading" and "The girls are reading" together to test your child's understanding of boy/girl and plural -s endings.
Varying the level of difficulty
Start with two sentence picture cards to choose from when matching less familiar sentences.
As your child becomes more practised with activity and more familiar with the sentences, you can increase the number of sentence picture cards they have to choose from when matching a sentence.
Instructions
| 1 | Show your child the sentence picture cards | |
[Cards]: Select corresponding sentence picture cards and sentence cards for each of the sentences you wish to work with. Place the sentence picture cards in front of your child. Vary the order and position of the cards each time you work on this activity. ::: card-example
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[Apps]: From the Main Menu screen, select Activities > Understanding Sentences. Select the sentences you wish to work with. Tap the start button. ::: app-example
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| 2 | Attract your child's attention Say "let's put sentences with pictures". Encourage your child to look at the sentence picture cards. |
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| 3 | Present a sentence card to match | |
[Cards]: Hand your child the first of the sentence cards to match. ::: card-example
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[Apps]: Tap the card to 'turn over'. ::: app-example
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| 4 | Ask your child to match the sentence -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Point to the sentence picture card that you are asking your child to match and say "put the sentence(s) with the picture". If your child cannot yet read the keywords in the phrase, read the sentence for them -- say "[This is a leaf] -- can you put [This is a leaf] with the picture?" Point to the words on the card as you read them. At first, you may need to prompt your child while they learn the activity. Point to the sentence card that corresponds to the card presented. Help your child to place the card over the corresponding card. If your child correctly matches the phrase, say "yes -- [This is a leaf]" If you are modelling or prompting, repeat the word after you have matched the picture together -- say "this says [This is a leaf] -- [This is a leaf]" [Apps]: Your child can tap the matching card to indicate their selection. |
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| 5 | Present the next sentence card to match | |
[Cards]: Hand your child the next card to match. ::: card-example
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[Apps]: Tap the card to 'turn over'. ::: app-example
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| 6 | Repeat steps 4 and 5 Repeat steps 4 and 5 until your child has matched each card. |
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:::App settings
The apps include the following settings that control how the activity is presented:
- Number of choices - Sets the number of cards to be presented for matching.
- Number of answer attempts - Sets the number of incorrect answers that can be given before prompting the correct answer.
- Time to wait for answer - Initially, this is indefinite to allow you to demonstrate and explain the activity.
- Enable rewards -- When enabled, the sounds of applause can be played at the end of the activity by tapping the check mark.
Recording progress
You can record your child's progress using the Sentences section of the record form for the book you are working on.
Record the dates your child first matches each sentence to the correct picture and when they successfully read the sentence.
Moving to the next activity
You can move on to the final activity (Building Sentences) when your child can successfully match the sentences in the book you are working on to the corresponding pictures.
