Sentence Expansion
June's membership material winner was sentence expansion worksheets! Thanks to those who voted!!
I have a lot of therapy materials available for this goal that I'm excited to share with you!
Sentence Expansion Goals
This goal is quite complicated depending on the age of the child and the areas of need.
For early intervention, you might need to focus on:
- vocabulary
- simple syntax (i.e., noun + verb)
For early language, you might need to focus on:
- vocabulary (objects, subject, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)
- syntax (i.e., noun + verb, noun + verb + direct objects, etc...)
Sentence Expansion & Early Intervention
For early intervention, expanding mean length of utterance happens during play and functional communication.
Sentence expansion techniques includes:
- First, a child says a word.
- Next, a parent repeats their child’s utterance.
- Then, the PARENT expands on the utterance by adding one or two words to the original utterance.
- Next, the parent waits to see if their child will repeat the expanded phrase (5-10 seconds).
- Finally, whether the child repeats the phrase or not, the parent repeats the expanded phrase one more time to give the child more exposure to the grammar and vocabulary of the expanded utterance.
The repetition portion helps to build vocabulary. The expanding portion helps to lengthen utterances as well as build vocabulary. The final repeat is just another verbal model. There is a lot of learning to be had with this simple technique.
This handout is very helpful for teaching caregivers how to perform this techniques!
This handout is very helpful for teaching caregivers how to perform this techniques!
NEW Sentence Expansion For Early Language!
For early language development, you may need to work on vocabulary (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) and/or syntax.
To target this, I make sure I'm not targeting TOO many language skills at one time. That is why I created NEW leveled materials that provide as much support as needed for each individual student.
These are available in both Spanish AND English for members.
Missing Adjective Only - Level 1
Carrier Phrases (English & Spanish)
For these materials, I used the carrier phrase "I see" to take out the language demands of pronouns and pronoun/verb agreement.
The first set of materials challenge the child with naming ONLY the adjective (color, number, description). All other words are supported with a box/picture/word.
Pronouns (English & Spanish)
These materials up the language demand since they include pronouns and verbs (supported with a picture) and naming the adjective (color, number, description).
Missing Adjective & Noun - Level 2
Carrier Phrases (English & Spanish)
These materials include the carrier phrase "I see" (to take off extra language demands for those who need it) but challenge the student to name the adjective (color, number, description) AND object.
The carrier phrase is supported with pictures and words.
Pronouns (English & Spanish)
These materials are similar to the ones above, but I added the challenged of pronoun/verb which is supported by words.
The child here must name the adjective and object when completing each sentence.
Missing All Words - Level 3
The last level is obviously the hardest!
All cues are gone. I left the squares so the child or therapist can cross off the box as the child says each word in the sentence. Marking each word also helps to slow speedy students down 🙂
63 Bonus Materials
There are 63 more materials that can be used to target sentence expansion. I placed them on the same expansion page so you can find them easily.
They all offer varying supports & challenges from missing verbs, subjects, WH question words, descriptions, etc....
I have a healthy mix of print and no-print for you!
Members
Non-Members
If you would like to access all multiple meaning materials and 2,482+ materials, you can join the membership here.