I have been having a BLAST trying out all of the great ideas I learned at ASHA!
One such idea that I have been having a blast with is the concept of “whole thought vs. half thought” aka complete sentence vs. fragment.
Doesn’t whole/half sound so much better?! I have so many students struggling to produce complete and grammatically correct sentences. I also have students that can verbally express complete and grammatically correct sentences but struggle to produce this skill in writing. Yes, I know we teach speaking and not writing but if our students cannot carryover this skill into the classroom (and written expression is how they show their work in the classroom for the most part), then what good is it that they can do it in your little therapy room?!
To begin, I taught the concept and modeled the differences of a whole and half thought. I had my students point to and/or express based on sentences/phrases heard and read.
So simple of a visual right?! I quickly wrote it on index cards! Once they grasped the concept, we practiced!!! First, they had to turn my half thoughts written on my “Color by WH Question” activity, into complete sentences or whole thoughts!
Then we practiced expressing sentences to respond to WH questions using my Thanksgiving WH Board Games! Whenever my students responded, I had them reflect on their responses. I repeated what they said and they had to determine if it was a whole or half thought.
Once they truly grasped the concept, I had them work on writing their whole thoughts. I had them use the question to help shape their responses! POQ baby!!
My students are doing so well with this! I cannot wait to continue using this strategy!
Want to learn a little more about the POQ strategy? Read this blog post next!
