The greatest bang for the buck for fluent readers to improve academic reading comprehension and writing sophistication? Syntax at the sentence level. But, how to teach it?

The research over the last half-century is clear that isolated explicit grammar instruction is ineffective. However, teachers know that implicit grammar instruction in which students are taught only when problems arise is akin to instructional Swiss cheese.

To quote the late William Van Cleave, "The implicit grammar instruction camp provides no overarching framework, no consistent language of instruction, and not enough practice for students."

Bottom line? Neither explicit, nor implicit grammar camps are working for our students to help them better understand (read) and apply (write) the complex syntax found in academic reading. I agree with William, we need a new camp to link reading and writing instruction.

All program components are digital downloads (no print books).

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Syntax in Reading and Writing will help your students learn the function of syntactic tools in reading and writing at the sentence level. No endless grammar identification and terminology worksheets; no DOL error correction; no mini-lessons; but lessons which teach how challenging sentences are constructed.

The 18 parts of speech, phrases, and clauses weekly lessons are leveled from basic (elementary) to advanced (middle and high school) and feature 5 lesson components (10–15 minutes each):

1. Learn It! (the syntactic content and examples) 

2. Identify It! (a short practice section) 

3. Explain It! (analysis of challenging sentences featuring the syntactic focus) 

4. Revise It! (kernel sentences, sentence expansion, syntactic manipulation)  

5. Create It! (Short writing application with the syntactic focus in different genre).

Additionally, the teacher and students Find It! by searching class and independent reading texts for syntactically similar sentences to analyze and explain.