Several people have asked me about mentor sentences for the lower grades- the ones I originally created were for grades 3-5. Typically, third, fourth, and fifth graders have more of an understanding of parts of speech as well as more experience with reading and writing. Because of this, mentor sentences in the lower grades are going to look a bit different than the upper grades. The idea and purpose will still be the same though: exposing students to well-written sentences from quality texts will help them become better writers and have a greater understanding of how the parts of speech work together. You can read more about the theory and ideas behind mentor sentences in Jeff Anderson’s books! I have adapted his ideas to create a routine that worked for elementary classrooms. 🙂

If you have not watched the video of me in my fourth grade class showing mentor sentences in action, I would watch that first before continuing on with this post- even though you won’t be going as “deep” with lower grade students, the procedures and purposes will still be the same. Here is a video of me with a borrowed first grade class! This is the first time they have ever done mentor sentences, and you’ll see how engaged they are even on the first try!

First and second graders can absolutely benefit from mentor sentences, just as upper grade students do! It might take a little longer for students to understand the routine than upper grade students, but just like with anything else, consistency is key! Here is a sentence from my first unit of mentor sentences for second graders:

Depending on your students, you might do all of this together just on chart paper, or you might have the students copy/write in a notebook, too. The things we hope for students to notice during Day 1 (Time to Notice) in the lower grades are going to be different than upper grades- they are going to be more basic. This sentence includes proper nouns, which will be the focus of the week’s lessons, so it will be important to talk about why there are capital letters at the start of names.

On Day 2, working with parts of speech will definitely look very different from the upper grades, especially in the beginning of the year. I have still included the list of all the parts of speech on the lesson suggestions page for your own information and in case you have some higher level kids that are ready to go more in depth…

But, I would focus more on the part of speech skill for that week- maybe labeling just those in the sentence, or making a t-chart, like this:

Having a discussion about just the proper and common nouns in the sentence would be a great lead to a lesson where they find their own proper and common nouns in their books! You could even have them write those nouns on sticky notes and put them onto your t-chart you’ve created!

On Day 3, it would be a good idea to help guide the students in how to revise a sentence. One of the skills required by common core is to expand simple and compound sentences. One way to do this is to add adjectives before nouns. Giving them the sentence with blanks in front of the nouns so that students can brainstorm and help you revise the sentence first is a great way to get them thinking before they try to revise the sentence on their own.

On day 4, imitating will be the hardest part for most of the lower grades students to grasp at first, but it will be the most important for students’ writing progress! Don’t give up- it will come! I would suggest giving them a sentence frame, almost like a MadLib:

You can have students brainstorm with you, or you can have them try on their own after you walk them through a think-aloud of your own sentence. You should use your own judgment based on what your students are ready to do.

I like to keep all of my daily lessons up on the chart each day so the students can be reminded of the focus and see our progress. Also, because the week’s focus is proper nouns, I would point them out when I see them in reading, as well as do some short lessons on proper nouns throughout the week during writing/grammar time.

On Friday, I would remove the chart and sentence from the students’ view so they can’t just copy on the quiz. In the lower grades quizzes I’ve made, I have included handwriting lines to encourage proper letter formation when the students re-write the sentence properly. The quiz will assess the skill that you’ve focused on all week. To give you an idea, here is the answer key to the weekly quiz that goes with the lesson I’ve shown you:

I hope this helps you understand how to use mentor sentences in second grade, and even first grade in the second half of the year! If you want to try them in your classroom, you can get a freebie here!

You can also get the first set here:

You can see other mentor sentences that can be used for first grade by clicking here and second grade by clicking here. Please let me know if you have any other questions! I love to hear how they are working in your classroom, too! :o)

If you want even more IN-DEPTH step-by-step help with implementing mentor sentences, check out my courses!

For more mentor sentence ideas, follow my Pinterest board!

Upper grades had them first, then second and first grade teachers got them… I couldn’t leave out my kinder friends, now could I?? Mentor sentences for emergent readers look VERY different than the other grades, so I’d like to take some time to talk about them in this post. These are perfect to use whole group or small group (if you have only some students who need it)- and are ideal for any student who is still in the emergent reader phase… not just kindergarten!

In this post, I had two fabulous teachers share how they are using these mentor sentences in their classroom through pictures. They are using two different books/lessons, but you’ll still get the idea of each activity. 🙂

There is also a video of me teaching mentor sentences to Kindergarten ELL students at the end of this post, as well as a freebie for you to try! I hope you enjoy learning how to implement these in your own classroom!

Mentor Sentences for Kindergarten take more of a balanced literacy approach than the other grades. There is still a time to notice and a time to imitate, but students are also practicing reading along with writing. To begin, students will listen to you read a book- fun books like Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive the Bus and Very Hungry Caterpillar are included in the first set. Then you will display a sentence from the book and practice reading it together.

Students should tell you what they notice in the sentence- they might see specific letters or words they recognize… they might tell you which words are the shortest or longest… maybe even what punctuation they see. You can ask questions to prompt them if needed. As the year progresses, of course, they will notice more. Reading the sentence every day, multiple times, will help in their word recognition! Several sentences in the first set repeat some of those important sight words they need to learn.

To further help them with word recognition, students will complete a cut and paste activity where they will read the words mixed up and put them back in the correct order of the sentence. You may want to cut apart the words to ensure they stay in one piece, or to speed things along.

Again- lots of reading and re-reading of the sentence!

Students will cut out the words of their own sentence (or again, you may want to do it for them). Then, they should practice putting the sentence back in order! You might want to keep them in a baggy so they can practice reading and ordering the words without losing pieces.

Then of course, the best part of all- students get to illustrate their sentence!

How cute are these?!

If your students have moved out of the “EARLY” emergent reader phase, you can check out Mentor Sentences for Emergent Readers (K-1)! To see a side-by-side comparison of the Kindergarten and Kinder-First sets, check this post out!

If you’d like to see Mentor Sentences for Kindergarten in action, watch this video:

And if you’d like to try them out in your own classroom, grab this freebie from my TPT store!

If you want even more IN-DEPTH step-by-step help with implementing mentor sentences, check out my courses!

Follow Ideas By Jivey’s board Mentor Sentences on Pinterest.

 

I am so excited to announce that there are OFFICIALLY mentor sentences for every elementary grade! Grades 3-5 had them first– and they now have two complete volumes to choose from… then second grade got them, and these can be implemented into first grade with some scaffolding… but when I released mentor sentences for EARLY emergent readers (kindergarten, ELL, and maybe first grade if you’ve got some low babies), I had people asking for lessons that come between the K and 2 lessons for their emergent readers. I was happy to oblige! 🙂

Just like always, I used some of my favorite books that I loved reading to my kiddos when I taught first grade!

Let’s take a peek inside the two units- the Kindergarten Unit and the Kinder-First Unit- so you can see the differences in skill levels! (Both of the lessons you’ll see are freebies in my store!)

    

I hope this post helps you see how valuable mentor sentences can be for kindergartners and first graders, too! It provides balanced literacy opportunities where students will be reading and writing every day, and your students will have fun at the same time.

You can get ten weeks of lessons for either set:

     

I’d love to hear how these are going in your classrooms!

This time of year is my FAVORITE when it comes to a lot of things… but especially mentor texts! There are so many fun, seasonal books to read to students.

One of my favorites is Bear Stays Up For Christmas by Karma Wilson. I included this book in Seasonal Mentor Sentences for K-1 Emergent Readers.

One way to liven up a sentence, yes even in kindergarten and first grade, is to add some prepositional phrases. Whether you want to call them by their “real name” or just call them “position words,” students should be able to use them even at this age.

Watch the video about the lesson below, or scroll further to read details about it!

Download the Bear Stays Up For Christmas Lesson Here!

THE MENTOR SENTENCE LESSON

After reading the book, show your students the mentor sentence from the book:

The idea of mentor sentences across all grades is for students to notice what makes this a great sentence, and then carry those great things over into their writing. Read the sentence together several times, and then begin asking questions. First, you might ask questions to ensure understanding. “What is the sentence about? Who is ‘he?’ Where did he pile presents?” Then start asking questions to guide them to see what makes this a good sentence: “What is the verb in the sentence? What are the nouns? What is the position word? What does the sentence start/end with?” After several weeks, once students realize what questions you might be asking, they will start looking for these things in sentences on their own.

Many teachers have said they LOVE my sets of mentor sentences because it doesn’t just cater to their writing needs, but it also helps students with word recognition and reading! This is an activity students would do after comprehending and noticing the important parts of the sentence.

The next day, revisit that position word, “under.” Talk about why it was important in the sentence and why we would want to use position words in our sentences. Create an anchor chart with a Christmas tree. Place some gifts in different places around the tree and ask students to name the preposition that tells where the gift is, labeling as they tell you.

(If you have Seasonal Mentor Sentences for K-1 Emergent Readers, these pictures of gifts are included for you to use on your chart.)

Students will also have the opportunity to complete an activity on their own (or with your guidance) with some prepositions.

On the third day, you will revisit the sentence again. Read the complete sentence together, and then use the sentence frame to discuss what other prepositions we could use in the sentence.

At this point, students will be eager to try this out on their own! Depending on the writing level of your students, you might provide them with the sentence ready for them to trace, or you might give them the page that enables them to copy the sentence independently.

Either way, students will be excited to put their own preposition in the sentence, and then illustrate the sentence, too! This might take two days to complete, depending on how much time you have for writing. The best part will be when you turn all of these pages into a class book that they can read during reading time (book cover included in the pack)!

On the last day, students will have the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of prepositions with a fun drawing activity.

Students LOVE doing mentor sentences, and so will you! Students will make connections and remember the sentences from week to week- and you will be amazed at the growth you see!

Want to try out this lesson for free? CLICK HERE for an exclusive blog freebie!

Check out other Kindergarten and First Grade Mentor Sentences in my store!

If you want even more IN-DEPTH step-by-step help with implementing mentor sentences, check out my courses!

For more Mentor Sentences Resources and ideas, follow my Pinterest board!