Improve KS2 sentence construction with The Writing Revolution

Discover how using The Writing Revolution can transform KS2 sentence construction and support the DfE’s call for clear, quality-first writing instruction.

Teacher helping a smiling student with curly hair in a classroom, both looking at a notebook. Other students are visible in the background.

Sentence construction in KS2 has, in my experience, long been an issue - until I found The Writing Revolution. For too long, I’d seen pupils attempt extended writing without fully understanding what a sentence actually is, let alone how to vary or control them.

This is one of the concerns addressed in the DfE’s 2025 writing framework, which states that:

Sentence instruction is essential: All writing is made up of sentences. Knowledge of grammar helps pupils to control sentences and convey meaning, but it does not support their writing fluency when taught in isolation.
Quality is more important than length: Pupils need to master the foundations of writing – handwriting, spelling and sentence construction. They should not be expected to write at length before they are ready.
Schools should concentrate initially on teaching high-quality transcription and sentence instruction, while gradually developing broader writing skills.

After more than ten years of teaching writing in year 6, I’ve come to appreciate a few consistent truths about children: their imaginations are remarkable; they can grasp challenging ideas; they take great delight in using a newly discovered dash (often a little too enthusiastically); and, surprisingly often, they don’t actually know what a sentence is.

Why do they still not know what a sentence is?

This lack of understanding can present itself in many forms, from the struggling writer who has no understanding of where to use a full stop, to the more competent writer who, despite writing proficiently (for the most part) at length, still unknowingly uses fragments and run-on sentences.

There are many things we could blame for this: the packed curriculum that pressures teachers to “move on” before content is mastered; the occasional misguided interpretation of Ofsted expectations; or the temptation to prioritise quantity of writing over clarity and control.

But rather than working out who to blame, it’s far more productive (and satisfying!) to find a solution.

What is The Writing Revolution?

How many of you have thought, or even said aloud, “I just want them to stop writing how they speak!”

The Writing Revolution (TWR) is a book which “provides a clear method of instruction that you can use no matter what subject or grade level you teach… by focusing on specific techniques that match their [the children’s] needs”.

Despite being written with a US audience in mind, TWR’s explicit method of teaching has proved invaluable in my primary English lessons. It’s practical and focuses on sentence-level instruction as the foundation for quality writing.

What are the principles of The Writing Revolution?

TWR challenges the ‘more is better’ mentality by emphasising the value of clarity, control and precision. It advocates sentence practice embedded in meaningful content – not in isolation, but also not lost in endless extended writing. Because of this, any examples I use in lessons would be based around a topic from another area of the curriculum.

Each activity in the book is tailored for both “Level 1” (primary age equivalent) and “Level 2” (secondary). While much of the first half is relevant for primary, one chapter in particular – Sentences: The Basic Building Blocks of Writing – quickly became the basis of all my writing lessons.

What is sentence structure in KS2?

At its core, sentence structure in KS2 involves understanding what makes a sentence grammatically complete (for the most part, a subject and a verb) and how to construct more sophisticated ones with purpose (adding phrases and clauses).

There aren’t many references to sentence structure in the English curriculum - those that are included are as follows:

Year 2: “In writing, pupils at the beginning of year 2 should be able to compose individual sentences orally and then write them down.”
Year 3/4: “Pupils should be able to write down their ideas with a reasonable degree of accuracy and with good sentence punctuation. Teachers should therefore be consolidating pupils’ writing skills, their vocabulary, their grasp of sentence structure and their knowledge of linguistic terminology”
Year 3/4 composition: draft and write by composing and rehearsing sentences orally (including dialogue), progressively building a varied and rich vocabulary and an increasing range of sentence structures
Year 3/4 vocabulary, grammar and punctuation: extend the range of sentences with more than one clause by using a wider range of conjunctions, including when, if, because, although
Year 5/6: “Teachers should prepare pupils for secondary education by ensuring that they can consciously control sentence structure in their writing and understand why sentences are constructed as they are.”

Activities to support better sentence construction

To support this, TWR offers a range of simple but powerful activities that I would use as daily writing starters on rotation.

1. Identifying fragments orally

Children often have a natural ear for fragments. Take, for example, the phrase “invaded Germany in 1945”. When asked what’s missing, they’ll usually recognise that we don’t know who invaded (or, grammatically, the subject of the sentence). In this case, it’s the Allied forces (we were studying WW2 when I used this fragment!). Embedding these activities in familiar content really helps. At year 6 level, this is a great opportunity to introduce terminology: the subject is missing, leaving only the verb and object. Pupils can then complete the thought aloud, turning the fragment into a full, grammatically correct sentence.

2. Identifying standalone fragments

Once pupils have grasped the idea of fragments, they can begin working with written examples. Display a few on the board and ask them to rewrite each one as a full, correctly punctuated sentence on their whiteboards. For instance, “a prime number has” might become “a prime number has only two factors”, while “the onions because he was hungry” could be revised as “Zero ate the onions because he was hungry”. These examples work best when drawn from current class topics like maths or your class book (of course I had to include an example from Holes - my ultimate favourite UKS2 text!).

3. Identifying fragments in text

As the support is gradually reduced, pupils can begin working with longer pieces of text. Present them with a paragraph (again, ideally tied to a topic they’re already studying) in which a few sentences have been deliberately turned into fragments. Their task is to spot the incomplete sentences and revise them into fully formed ones.

4. Unscrambling words

Show the children a group of words that they must order to make a complete sentence, for example “part whole a of a is fraction a” becomes “A fraction is a part of a whole”.

5. Run-on sentences

A run-on sentence occurs when two or more main clauses are joined incorrectly, often squashed together without the proper punctuation or linking words. One of the most common mistakes children make is the comma splice, as in: “She ate her lunch, she was hungry."

Encourage pupils to identify the individual main clauses (if they can already spot fragments versus full sentences, this step usually comes quite naturally) and decide how to separate or link them appropriately using punctuation or conjunctions.

For example, this run-on sentence:

I finally finished my homework it was getting late my mum called me for dinner.

…could be corrected in a variety of ways, such as:

I finally finished my homework - it was getting late. My mum called me for dinner
I finally finished my homework. It was getting late - my mum called me for dinner
I finally finished my homework even though it was getting late, then my mum called me for dinner.
I finally finished my homework. It was getting late when my mum called me for dinner.

How to identify simple, complex and compound sentences

Through using TWR strategies, children are taught how to create successful complex and compound sentences from simple sentences using activities such as “kernel sentences”, the “because, but, so” method, and the use of appositives (essentially relative clauses with an omitted relative pronoun) - this is another important element in improving writing quality is sentence expansion and combination.

Using TWR, even my feedback became more impactful. Previously, if a child’s sentence or paragraph didn’t make sense, they’d struggle to revise it. Now, when I write “fragment” or “run-on sentence” in the margin, they know exactly what it means and how to fix it.

Teaching children to write well begins with helping them understand what a sentence is. As the DfE framework rightly states, sentence instruction is essential, not optional. It’s entirely possible to teach the mechanics of writing while nurturing imagination and creativity - the two are not mutually exclusive. We can show pupils how to use a semi-colon correctly and how to engage their reader at the same time.

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