Why use Possible Sentences?

• It activates students’ prior knowledge about content area vocabulary and concepts, and can improve their reading comprehension.

• It sparks students’ curiosity about their reading. By asking your students to guess how the words may be used in the text, you hope they are enticed to read the whole selection and determine if their sentences were accurate.

• It teaches students to guess how words may be used in the text and create meaningful sentences.

Video: Watch Possible Sentences in Action (Whole Class)

Using a strategy very similar to possible sentences, this elementary teacher has her students use a list of given words to make predictions about a book. (Balanced Literacy Diet: Putting Research into Practice in the Classroom)

Differentiate Instruction

For multilingual learners (MLs), students of varying reading skill, and younger learners:

• Have students of varying abilities work together to develop sentences.

• Invite students to share their sentences with the class.

• If students have never completed possible sentences you will need to model the process for your students.

• Provide clues for younger readers by writing sentences and leaving blanks for them to fill in vocabulary words.

• Give MLs the vocabulary words in both English and their native language. Ask them to write sentences in English.

• As a post reading game, students can share their sentences without disclosing which are accurate or inaccurate. Teams of students can try to decipher, based on their reading, which sentences are accurate.