Sentence Starters: The Secret to Helping Students Compose Sentences That Make Sense and Form Paragraphs That Are Organized

DISCLAIMER: I am committed to maintaining my students’ privacy and protecting their identities. The majority of the students you read about on my website are fictional characters I’ve created; however, each of them is based on my real-life experiences with actual students who have shared similar struggles at school. Specific stories will only be shared with permission and will be documented clearly in the writing where the student’s story appears. 

Do you have a student who has trouble writing sentences? Do they have a hard time putting together a paragraph? Let me tell you about a great success story! When I met Bella, she had trouble forming letters. While working on her letter formation, I realized she also had a hard time composing and writing simple sentences on her own. So, years ago, I made the first version of a “Sentence Starters” kit. Together, we worked on how to use it and it improved her classroom success! Since then, I’ve revamped and used these Sentence Starters with many students and have found the same success—time and time again.

When I met Bella, she was having difficulty with basic letter formation. At that time, she needed a visual model to write any single letter—even the letters in her own name. Her letters were also GIANT. She built each one by connecting individual pencil strokes; they were not fluid, smooth, or legible. Her letters were not habitualized, which means she had to stop and think about how to form each letter before trying to write it. The connection between her brain and her hand had not developed an automatic response to hearing the instruction to “write a B.”  In addition, Bella struggled immensely with sitting still and controlling her body. Her supplies and materials sprawled across her work area, often getting in the way of her classmates’ working environments. She tripped a lot, fell while seated, ran into furniture, and was “constantly on the move.”

Let’s briefly talk about diagnoses and school-based occupational therapy (OT). To receive occupational therapy at school, a student typically requires either a diagnosis or a performance deficit that severely impacts their participation or performance at school. A child’s diagnosis can serve as a helpful guide to treatment, but the OT’s interventions should always focus on improving school performance and classroom success. Here on the blog, you may find me describing a diagnosis from time to time. You should only rely on a trusted physician to make a diagnosis for your child. If you feel strongly that you are noticing difficulties at school that aren’t resolving, I would encourage you to talk to your child’s teachers and his or her physician.

What was going on with Bella that was affecting her progress in the classroom? 

Bella had a diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) explains that people with ADHD present with these main symptoms: 

• difficulty paying attention (inattention)
• being overactive (hyperactivity), and 
• acting without thinking (impulsivity)

Bella also had a dual-diagnosis of developmental coordination disorder (DCD). Psychology Today defines DCD as “a movement condition marked by difficulty learning fine and gross motor skills compared to children of the same age.” Healthline describes it as: 

[A] lack of coordination between your mental intentions and your ability to get your body to carry out those intentions. For example, you might think, ‘I need to tie my shoe.’ However, your brain does not properly send the instructions for shoe tying to your hands and feet. Your brain knows how to tie shoes, but your hands just can’t follow your brain’s instructions. The same thing happens when you try to run, jump, write, button a shirt, and many other tasks that most people take for granted.

The common characteristics of these two diagnoses definitely help describe the challenges that Bella faced as I worked with her.

Bella’s language skills were intact. She understood how to do the writing tasks asked of her, but she needed help to physically execute the task. Despite the numerous times she had seen or practiced forming the letters of her name, she continued to have tremendous difficulty with forming the letters on paper. In addition, the amount of effort required for her to form individual letters caused sentence and paragraph formation to be a huge challenge. I realized that her fine motor skills were not developing quickly enough to support her in becoming a functional writer. 

As Bella’s occupational therapist, I first identified the performance deficits impacted by her diagnoses; then, I modified the task to facilitate progress and improvement. 

One way I modified the task was through the introduction of assistive technology (AT). Typing decreased the required fine motor output required for Bella to express her thoughts, ideas, and knowledge. Instead of forming each letter of a word individually, she just needed to strike keys on a keyboard. Typing allowed Bella to express herself more efficiently than writing had permitted; she was able to produce letters and words at a faster rate of speed.

Although typing provided some fine motor relief, I realized that Bella was still having a hard time composing sentences on her own. I knew that if she was struggling to compose single sentences in our one-on-one therapy sessions, then she was also struggling immensely in the classroom environment, where she was expected to write full paragraphs. 

About three-to-four sessions into working on typing, I realized that I was continuously providing Bella with words and sentences to type for the purpose of improving her typing skills. I knew that this would not be sufficient in supporting significant improvement in her classroom performance; I needed to modify the task again. She needed a tool to facilitate increased independence when I was not there to help, so I created a set of “Sentence Starters.” 

“Sentence Starters” were the game changer. 

With AT, Bella no longer needed to focus as much physical and cognitive energy on writing letters, words, and sentences. With the addition of my “Sentence Starters,” she no longer needed to focus so heavily on generating, remembering, and typing the words of a complete sentence. Pairing AT with my set of “Sentence Starters” provided the “just right challenge” for Bella to improve her skills while still promoting active learning with the optimal amount of therapeutic intervention. Bella started composing sentences and paragraphs with greater independence during our therapy sessions, and even in her classroom!

I’ve handwritten sets of my “Sentence Starters” for students again and again. Along the way, I’ve made slight changes and improvements. In the shop, I provide you with the finalized version!

Here are the types of cue cards that the set of “Sentence Starters”  includes: 

1. Eight “Sentence Starter Cards” (4 color-coded, 4 black-and-white)
2. One “Conclusion Card”
3. One “Starting Words Card”

These easy-to-use cue cards are beneficial for many different types of students. My set of “Sentence Starters” helps students compose individual sentences, as well as build five-sentence paragraphs. It breaks down writing tasks into a few, chunked parts. Here’s a description of how each type of card works.

For students who have started to practice paragraph writing, start from the beginning with Card Type Number 1: The “Sentence Starter Cards.” For students who are working on writing sentences but are not quite ready for paragraph writing, skip to Card Type Number 3: The “Starting Words Card.”

1. The “Sentence Starter Cards” – These four cards provide an organized, five-step outline for writing different types of paragraphs. For the first step, I typically provide the student with a topic sentence or ask them a question. The student’s answer to the question then becomes the topic sentence. 

• For example:
  • I ask: “What’s your favorite holiday?”
  • The student responds: “My birthday!”
  • I state: “My favorite holiday is. . . ”
  • The student repeats my words and then completes the sentence, generating our topic sentence: “My favorite holiday is my birthday.” They then write this topic sentence on their paper. 

After generating the topic sentence we talk about what details they would like to include in their paragraph, for steps two through four.  For example, I might ask them: “What about your birthday would you like to write about?” Their answer leads us to choosing one of the following cards to write sentences two, three, and four of their paragraph:

• If the student wants to provide “reasons” for why their birthday is their favorite holiday, then the green card is used—or the black and white version of it.

• If the student wants to share specific aspects, or “things,” they like about their birthday, then the orange card is used—or the black and white version of it.

• If the student wants to describe the “traditions” of how their family celebrates their birthday every year, then the blue card is used—or the black and white version of it.

• If the student wants to explain the “routine” of how their birthday is celebrated, then the red card is used—or the black and white version of it.

As outlined, we work together to choose the specific “Sentence Starter” card that makes the most sense for what the student wants to talk about. With practice and fading prompts, the student becomes more and more independent in using the cards—eventually, many students become independent in choosing the “Sentence Starter Card” that is most appropriate for what they’re writing about. The “Sentence Starter Card” provides them with clear phrasing to initiate each sentence of the paragraph, with cues like “First,” “Next,” and “Finally.” If the cue card is laminated for the student, they can use a dry erase marker to cross off each sentence’s cue as it is written. This increases the student’s level of independence by keeping them on track without needing verbal prompting or visual cuing from an adult! 

2. The “Conclusion Card” – The fifth and final step uses the “Conclusion Card” which consists of a list of simple words to generate a meaningful conclusion, such as “favorite,” “hope,” “believe,” and “learn.” Once the student has finished writing their topic sentence and three detail sentences, they flip to the “Conclusion Card” and choose a word to build their conclusion around. 

To demonstrate the impact of these cards, here’s an example of a paragraph written without my Sentence Starters:

I love my birthday. I eat a lot. I get presents. My friends come. My mom makes my favorite food. I really like my birthday.

Here’s an example of a paragraph written with my Sentence Starters:

My favorite holiday is my birthday. One reason I love my birthday is because I get to eat cake. Another reason I love my birthday is because I get presents. A third reason I love my birthday is because my friends come over to my house. My favorite thing about my birthday is that my mom makes my favorite food for dinner. 

3. The “Starting Words Card” – This card is for students who aren’t quite ready to compose a paragraph. First, students need to master writing individual sentences with the “Starting Words Card.” After that, they can begin to work with the “Sentence Starter” and “Conclusion” cards explained above to form paragraphs. I’ve noticed that many of my second and third graders start every sentence with the same word and use a poor variety of sentence structures. For these students, I provide this card along with a rule: No two sentences can start with the same word. For example, I don’t permit them to write:

• The bird is blue. 
• The bird can fly. 
• The bird has a beak.

I tell the student that they must choose a different starting word for every sentence.

I often laminate this card so that the student can use a dry erase marker to easily cross off each starter word as it is used. This gives them a visual list of words that facilitate new choices and fosters creative writing.

For example, the sequence above becomes:

• The bird is blue.
• A bird can fly.
• He has a beak.

This card is great to use with students who have trouble initiating individual sentences, as well as those who have trouble using varied sentence structures. It’s also a good tool for those who aren’t yet ready to learn transitional phrases, but who may be preparing to do so soon. 

Occupational therapists tap into their creativity every day. We often create tools in-the-moment to support a student’s ability to complete an assignment with greater independence. This set of “Sentence Starters” is one of my favorite tools that I’ve created and made over and over again, so I made a digital version that allows me to print new sets quickly. After printing, I hole punch a corner on each card and throw them on a binder ring. It’s a huge time saver for me and my students love it!  Do you have a student or two like Bella? Maybe you have a few students who need help writing sentences that make sense, and another few who need help composing paragraphs that are organized? You can purchase a set of Bella-inspired Sentence Starters for each of those types of students here! 

If you do choose to purchase my set of Sentence Starters, please provide your feedback in the comments below and leave a picture on Pinterest—let me know how the product works for you!

Interested in other products? Check out my shop as well as some additional resources at my Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT) store!