Sentence stems are widely used by teachers, but what do we know about developing sentence stems and using them effectively? Sentence stems are intended to facilitate students' participation in academic conversations and writing and support students to develop the language expected in school, but sometimes the stems do not provide the support…

Direct quotation can be a source of meaning in storybook texts for beginning readers. The author of this article sketches the linguistic complexity of direct quotation and offers instructional strategies. Three aspects of direct quotation are examined: the cluster of print features and syntactic characteristics that direct quotation involves, the…

Basal readers are supposed to be easy for children to read, but sometimes their language is so unnatural that it's more confusing than helpful. (MKM)

Reviews research using sentence length as a factor in predicting readability and discusses the possibility of sentence complexity as a more accurate variable. (TO)

Presents examples of syntactic structures that may confuse children when reading. Suggests ways in which teachers can help overcome problems presented by these structures. (FL)

Provides several typical negative sentence structures, discusses why children find them difficult, and suggests how to begin teaching them to handle negatives. (FL)