I teach in a deaf education program that serves students in grades six through twelve in a public middle
school and high school. I work with the deaf and hard of hearing students in the sixth, seventh, and eighth
grades. During my years of teaching, I have used many different methods designed to generate writing
from my students with good English word order with varying degrees of success.
All deaf students experience some difficulty and frustration in learning to put their ideas on paper in
English word order. For the students who have extremely low vocabulary and reading comprehension, it is
even more difficult and frustrating. Some of these students may read as many as five years below their
chronological grade level. Middle school English classes may be their first opportunity to learn about
Grammar and English word order in writing.
PROBLEM: Teaching grammar and English word order to a student who has limited vocabulary and
reading comprehension.
SOLUTION: Introduce all of the concepts with vocabulary that the students can read and understand.
Display charts that classify the student’s mastered vocabulary into the different parts of speech, and other
charts that list the basic sentence patterns as visual aides. Provide extensive practice at each step.
Strategies:
1. Only the vocabulary that the students were able to read and understand was used during this
teaching.
2. Parts of speech were introduced with vocabulary students had mastered.
Parts of speech introduced were: Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Articles
As we studied each part of speech, we posted a list of the words the students knew that fit that
category.
3. The concepts of Where Phrases and When Phrases were introduced with mastered
vocabulary.
4. The use of 2+1=because and 1+2=so *** was introduced.
This method involves sentences with a cause and effect. The students must be able to identify
which part of the action in the sentence occurred first. If the cause and effect are to be
connected with ‘because’, then the second part, (the effect), must be written first, and the first
part, (the cause), written last. Example: Tom stayed home because he was sick. The formula
for this is “2+1= because“. To use ‘so’ in the sentence, the formula must be reversed.
Example:
Tom was sick, so he stayed home. “1+2=so“.
5. Basic sentence patterns were introduced using the components of strategies 1-4.
Sentence Patterns I used were:
Article + Noun+ Verb(ing)
Pronoun + Verb(ing)
Article+ Noun+ Verb+ Adjective
Pronoun + Verb +Adjective
Article + Noun+ Verb+ Where Phrase
Pronoun + Verb+ Where Phrase
Article + Noun+ Verb+ When Phrase
Pronoun + Verb + When Phrase
2+1= because and 1+2=so
6. Students were given worksheets containing several sentences in the same sentence pattern with
instructions to draw what the sentence said.
7. Students completed worksheets that contained pictures of three items, and sentences with
mixed
up word order that corresponded to each picture. Students used a list of the sentence patterns
to help them unscramble the sentences.
8. Students generated a single sentence for pictures of items with teacher modeling and guidance,
using the basic sentence patterns introduced.
9. Students completed worksheets that contained pictures of three items, and three sentences for
each picture that were in correct word order, but out of sequence. Students were asked to
sequence sentences correctly.
scenes,
10. Students were asked to write sentences on worksheets that contained pictures of various
such as a picnic or a beach. Four scene specific words were listed next to each picture. The
students were required to use these words in their sentences. Basic sentence patterns were used
as a guideline.
11. Students continued to practice writing sentence patterns with a variety of writing prompts.
Teacher guidance was available as needed.
12. Exam: Students were required to write a certain number of sentences, and specific sentence
patterns from a writing prompt they had not seen before.
*** I adopted this method from Lessons In Syntax by James E. McCarr, published by Dormac, Inc.
IMPACT: Several positive things have come about as a result of using this approach to teach English
word order in student writing. First, the students have shown less frustration during the teaching. They
seemed more secure, and willing to continue trying because they knew that they were going to work with
familiar words. They also knew that the charts in the classroom were available if they needed to doublecheck anything. Secondly, the students seemed more eager to attempt the lessons alone. They have wanted
to try to get their ideas on paper before they ask for reassurance that their efforts are correct. Because the
approach was broken down into small steps, they have been able to decide what should come next in the
word order, and choose that type of word rather than guess. But the best thing I have observed is that the
students are easily encouraged to use the sentence patterns from English class in writing for other classes.
It has become a memory tool to use whenever writing “a good English sentence”. I have included some
examples of the sentences written during these exercises.
Contact Information: mailto:randodi@tulsaschools.org
Student samples below:
Student unscrambled sentences into correct English word order and drew what the sentence said.
Student wrote sentences with correct English word order.
Student wrote two sentences in correct English word order. Basic sentence patterns were used as a
guide.
Student wrote sentences using listed vocabulary in correct English word order. Basic sentence
patterns used as a guide.
Student chose picture and wrote six required sentence patterns. Basic sentence pattern
used as a guide.
Student chose picture and wrote required sentences using Basic Sentence pattern guides.