Complete the Sentences

This activity, Complete the Sentence, helps children to improve their vocabulary and comprehension skill.

Benefits of this activity

  1. Recall ability: This activity enhances the ability of children to recall the words they know and to choose the most appropriate word. We store millions of information in our brain but much of them are lost because of disuse. Activities such as ‘Complete the Sentence’ activate areas in the brain where the information are stored. Without our knowledge, many ‘files’ in the brain are opened when we do this type of activity.
  2. Better comprehension, observation, and analytical skills: This activity tests the observation skills of children. Some questions require them to state what is obvious. There are also questions which require children to relate the picture to what they already know.

How is the activity organized?

An incomplete sentence relating to a picture is displayed. The challenge is to complete the sentence.

There are five sections in this activity and each section has 25 questions. If a question cannot be answered, one can go to the hint and listen to the completed sentence. Listening to sentences is very useful for struggling readers. They can read the sentences while listening to them. This would improve their reading skills. These can be also used as a dictation exercise.Children can take down the sentences read out.

The challenge is to complete the sentence. Your child may know the answer but may not know how to spell the word. While doing the activity, you can help your child with the spelling. Struggling readers may find it difficult to answer some of the questions. Be patient with your child. Understand your child. Create a proper atmosphere. Don’t judge your child and make harsh comments. Let your child have fun!

How to take this activity further? Tips for you, the parents.

  1. This activity, Complete the Sentence, is a powerful tool to improve language skills. How is this activity useful?

    1. Use of verbs:Ask your child to complete the following sentence in as many ways as possible. I am going to ______. To complete the sentence we have to use verbs. In the above example, it can be work, sit, stand, paint, draw, eat, and not so common answers such as hunt, dive, examine, rehearse, dig etc. Make a list of incomplete sentences. Also make a list of verbs. Categorize these into various levels- Low Beginning, High Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced etc.

      All members of your family can play this game by taking turns to complete the sentence. Start with common verbs and gradually increase the level of the activity. Occasionally, use not so common verbs so that your child becomes aware of many more verbs. Regular practice would boost your child’s ability to express. Download a list of verbs from the internet.

    2. Use of adjectives: Ask your child to complete the following sentence in as many ways as possible. He/She is ______. Ask your child to mention qualities of a person. The sentence can be completed in many ways. Here adjectives are used. Common adjectives are tall, short, lazy, brave, intelligent, beautiful, handsome etc. Not so frequently used adjectives are clumsy, troublesome, methodical, etc. All members of your family can have fun learning adjectives and completing the sentences. Start with commonly used adjectives and gradually raise the level of the activity. Adjectives help your child to describe things in vivid detail. Adjectives help us to become better writers.

      Download a list of adjectives from the net. Excellent videos are available on the internet on teaching adjectives.

    3. Use of nouns: A game can be devised to use nouns. He found a/an_____. Another example of an incomplete sentence is: She has______. In these examples,a noun has to be used. You can prepare a list of nouns.

  2. Picture composition.

    A variation of this activity is to look at a picture and write a story. Children can be asked to write stories based on a picture. This is called picture composition. This exercise is very effective to improve the imagination of children. It also improves language skills. The internet offers lots of exercises on picture composition.

  3. Improving memory

    Show a picture and ask your child to study it for a minute or so. Remove the picture and ask her/him to describe it. This exercise helps children to improve memory and observation skills.

  1. Search the internet for sentence completion tests.
  2. Excellent videos are available on the internet on picture composition.
  3. Check the internet for videos on teaching adjectives, verbs and adverbs.