Planning with Sentence-Starters
In nearly every classroom, there are students who struggle to express their ideas and concepts through oral and written language. These students are often highly capable of doing math, but have a difficult time communicating their thoughts. A sentence starter can be just the tool they need to move their thinking to a new level.
Sentence prompts are a simple yet powerful strategy in a teacher’s toolkit. These can range from sentence starters to more complex sentence frames with word banks of Tier 2 and 3 words. Sentence starters and frames help students structure their thoughts into organized ideas. They are widely beneficial and respond to learner variability by supporting;
English Language Learners who are developing academic vocabulary
Students who struggle with executive function
Students who are having trouble getting started with an idea
Here at CueThink, we want to provide the support so that students can focus their attention on the cognitive effort needed to explain math, and not get bogged down with the language.
How To Use Sentence Starters In CueThink
The CueThink application provides sentence starters in two ways: via annotations and the planning journal. This blog post will be focused on the journaling in the Plan Phase.
To access the sentence starters, students can click on the three dots at the top of their planning journal. They can choose which sentence starter they need, in order to help them plan their writing.
For students who need a bit more support, you can print a ‘Write your plan’ graphic organizer, which gets them started with using a pen and paper to do that initial planning. The graphic organizer is also helpful for students who need a little more structure. CueThink’s scaffolding helps teachers develop independence by responding to the variability of learners’ skills.
Students can use the final sentence starter, “I will check my work by...” to build reflective thinking and review their work. As a teacher, focusing on this one part helps students develop the grit they need to become productive problem solvers. By using the starter “I will check my work by”, they are reminded that this is an important step in the problem-solving process.