The Secret to Helping Students Master Sentence Writing

As teachers, we’ve all been there. You’ve modeled, practiced, and retaught a skill every way imaginable, and a few students still aren’t getting it. It’s completely normal!

Sentence writing is one of those tricky skills that pulls together so many different concepts: capital letters, punctuation, finger spaces, word order, and more. No wonder it can feel like a challenge for our youngest writers. Sometimes students just need a fresh approach.

That’s exactly why I created my Sentence Writing Unit, a complete, developmentally appropriate resource that helps kindergarten and first grade students finally understand what makes a complete sentence.

The Sentence Writing Unit is a four week, stand-alone resource that walks students through everything they need to become confident sentence writers. By the end of the unit, your students will use capital letters and punctuation correctly, add finger spaces between words, sound out unknown words, and write complete sentences independently. Each lesson includes a clear teaching point, a short and explicit mini lesson, and meaningful practice opportunities.

It’s developmentally appropriate. Young learners thrive with short, focused lessons. While most curriculums call a mini lesson 20 minutes long, mine are 5 to 10 minutes max. Each day’s teaching point is simple, supported by anchor charts and modeling that make sense to little learners.

It’s engaging and hands-on. Students get to write about things that interest them, fix sentences with errors, and unscramble mixed-up sentences. The activities are fun and meaningful, not just worksheets for the sake of practice. With over 75 print-and-go pages, you’ll have endless options for review and independent work.

It’s flexible. You can use this as a stand-alone unit at any time in the year or slide it right into your writing curriculum. It works perfectly after my Labeling Unit and before Narrative Writing. You can also pull out individual lessons when your class needs a quick refresh, for example, a one-day focus on finger spaces or punctuation.

Pairing the Sentence Writing Unit with Starting a Sentence gives your students both a visual and practical understanding of what great sentences look like. Read the mentor text together, model sentence structure during your mini lesson, then use the practice pages to reinforce what they learned from the story. It’s the perfect bridge between reading and writing!

I know you don’t have hours to prep. The Sentence Writing Unit is ready to print and teach. The anchor charts come in digital and printable formats, and the activities require very little cutting or extra materials. Each lesson takes around 20 minutes from start to finish, making it easy to fit alongside your current curriculum.

Head over to my TPT to grab the Sentence Writing Unit and Starting a Sentence. Together, they’ll make sentence writing one of your students’ favorite parts of the day!

Want even more writing support? Search “sentences” in my store for extra activities, or explore my Kindergarten Writing Curriculum for explicit, yearlong writing instruction.