Across the school years, students encounter increasingly complex sentence forms when reading and, in turn, are expected to use more sophisticated sentences when speaking and writing. Those who struggle with learning complex language often have difficulty with understanding text and expressing themselves clearly. Traditional methods for teaching grammar have proven to be ineffective in helping students understand how sentences work so they can read and write with ease. In this workshop, we will identify four grammatical structures that are known to be problematic for students who struggle with language and showcase how these grammatical concepts can be taught in a variety of settings using incidental/indirect instruction methods. The importance of developing a meta-level language about functional sentence parts will be stressed.
