Are you wondering how to work on syntax and grammar with your middle and high school speech therapy students? Or perhaps you’re wondering if it’s even a worthwhile IEP goal for your older students?
Syntax is one of the five foundational areas of language (alongside phonology, semantics, morphology, and pragmatics). Most of our standardized comprehensive language assessments to determine a need for language therapy services in the school include one or more subtests evaluating a student’s syntax language skills. There’s a reason for that! But…
Earlier in my career, the idea of not having to work on morphology and syntax was one of the perks of working with middle and high school students. If I’m being completely honest, I never quite…. saw the point of it. Even though I’ve always been a bit of “grammar nerd” myself, I had a hard time truly understanding why skills like pronouns, subject verb agreement, past tense -ed, etc… were needed for functional communication. As I’ve progressed as an SLP, with many, many years in middle and high schools now, I spend much more time targeting syntax than I thought I would. But thankfully, I also understand why it’s important now!
Before we move forward, I want to make one disclaimer. Growing up, I thought my ability to use SAE grammar, morphology, and syntax when speaking and writing was a sign of my superior intellect. I wore the “Grammar Nazi” label with honor. Many years later, I realized how ableist and racist that mindset was (not to mention how not okay that label is). I was sort of on the right track earlier in my career when I questioned the functionality of our grammar, morphology, and syntax treatment. Is it more important that a student can use -ed correctly or is it more important that they can communicate with intelligible intent? On the whole, it’s the latter, and individuals should never be judged or their communication honored less because of differences, whether it’s cultural or disordered.
However, a functional grasp of these skills is helpful both for students communicating socially and academically, when speaking and writing. In fact, morpho-syntactic interventions have some of the strongest evidence of success! (and get this: receptive language interventions have almost no evidence supporting them).
With my older students, the number one weakness I see is a poor understanding of what a sentence is, which tends to lead to unorganized expressive language with a lot of run-on sentences. This prevents them from being able to express themselves clearly when speaking (often leading to a lot of frustration) and greatly impacts their writing, which is important as they get older.
So, let’s chat about some ways that we can provide instruction in syntax and morphology with our older speech therapy students.
Provide explicit instruction
First things first: our students need explicit instruction in sentence structure. An understanding of subjects and predicates, prepositions, conjunctions, and relative pronouns/adverbs, etc… is vital. There are a variety of ways we can do this ranging from worksheets to entire systems. I’ve developed units for simple, compound, and complex sentence structures. You can also use programs, such as Shape Coding. Or, you can use other visual strategies, like color coding or diagramming sentences. Explicit instruction in sentence combining is one of the most researched methods for targeting sentence structure, and Speechy Musings has a great resource for that.
Provide visuals and lists
For those of us for whom syntax comes easy, visual reminders and keywords aren’t important. But for our students who are learning these skills, having a visual structure to follow and lists of target words to use (as well as how and when!) is not only ideal, but usually necessary, for building their confidence. Reducing the visuals they need to be successful is a way to scaffold them toward independence. You might consider providing the following (with their functions and examples, as needed):
- Lists of coordinating and subordinating conjunctions
- Lists of relative pronouns and adverbs
- Lists of prepositions
- Transition vocabulary words
- Frequently used verbs with some interesting synonyms
- Adjectives and adverbs (divided into categories of use if you want to be extra!)
- Sequencing graphic organizers
- Narrative structure graphic organizers
Use barrier tasks
Once students have a firm foundation in the structure of sentences, we can transition to using and understanding those skills. One of my favorite ways to begin working in this realm is barrier tasks. Having student’s guess a picture or scene is a great way to practice comprehension of syntax. SLPs can provide accurate or inaccurate descriptions, as students of all age loves to catch you out! Students can also describe pictures or scenes. Using carefully selected images allows you to elicit certain types of structures. (Side note: the sentence comprehension images in my sentence structure units work really well for this!)
Use sequence describing tasks
Beyond barrier tasks, additional tasks that require students to describe sequences are beneficial. Like barrier tasks, sequencing tasks are great for reinforcing the organizational aspects of sentence structure. Sequencing naturally reinforces the understandability of their verbal expression. Even if they’re struggling with some of the linguistic and organizational aspects, needing to sequence (forward or backward to self correct!) will elicit transitional words and phrases/clauses.
Use narrative storytelling (academic and functional)
Narrative storytelling is another great expressive language activity that offers a lot of freedom within form. Using a variety of sentence types is important for telling a compelling story, and using transition words is important for sequencing events correctly. You can focus on expressive language only by encouraging students to create their own narratives, or combine it with receptive language skills using story retell.
Use a debate format
Debates are really fun ways to get students talking! The need to persuade you or their peers lends itself to reinforcing clarity of sentence structure (as well as vocabulary and logic). It’s also a great opportunity for practicing a variety of joining words, like because, if, until, however, before, and after. Subordinating conjunctions, relative pronouns, and relative adverbs are all but necessary when debating and persuading.
One of the things I love about all of these ideas is the way they give us the ability to move along different levels… even if it’s not immediately obvious! You can work with your student to carefully craft an argument or narrative sentence by sentence or encourage spontaneous production to monitor carryover. You can provide sample sentences for students to combine or expand based on what would work best for the type of activity you’re working on. You can have students listen to or read existing debates, narratives, or sequences to demonstrate comprehension or to give them practice editing. The possibilities are, maybe not endless, but certainly extensive!
I hope some of these ideas help you in your next syntax therapy session with middle and high school students. I’d love to know how it goes or if you have any other ideas to add to this list!
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