Welcome to Step 6: Learn the Sentence
Up to now, the lessons have been focused on words. Learning phonics and decoding words is the best place to start, because words are the fundamental unit of written and oral communication. Individual words can spark ideas and mental pictures, but they are much more effective when they are grouped together in sentences.
What is a sentence?
It's a group of words that expresses a complete thought. What is meant by "a complete thought" is that you're not confused about what is being stated or asked in the sentence. For example, is this a sentence?
my dog
No, this is not a sentence because all this tells us is that there is a dog, and he or she is mine. Here's another example:
My dog barks at passing cars.
Is this a sentence? Yes. It expresses an understandable thought. The reader is not confused about that it means. By the way, it also begins with an uppercase letter, which we call a "capital letter." It also has ending punctuation, which is required for a sentence.
Learn the Rules for Sentences
Besides the requirement for expressing a complete thought, sentences have other rules. There are, as mentioned above, rules about punctuation and capital letters. There are rules about the structure of a sentence, which will be covered. Also learn how to tell a group of words that is a sentence from a group of words that looks like a sentence but isn't.
From the reading provided in previous lessons, it should be clear that words in a sentence are ordered in a specific way to allow the reader to accurately understand the meaning. Often, if one word is in the wrong place, the message can be lost.