Sentence Types Teaching Resources
Teach the types of sentences in your ELA classes with printable worksheets, writing activities and more teacher-created and curriculum-aligned teaching resources!
Our teacher team has created this extensive collection of teaching resources to help students understand how to create various sentence types from simple to compound-complex and use the proper punctuation. Aligned to the Common Core curriculum, the ELA collection includes editable worksheets and teaching presentations and more to save teachers time on lesson planning.
Created by expert teachers, each resource in this grammar collection has been carefully reviewed and curated by our team. That means it's ready to use in the classroom! You'll even find editable resources, plus differentiated options.
New to teaching sentence types, or just looking for fresh ways to engage your students? Read on for a primer from our teaching team!
What Are the 4 Types of Sentences?
So what types of sentences do kids typically learn about in elementary school, and why do they matter? It's often said there are four basic types, and it's technically true. But the four types you're teaching will depend on the grade level you're teaching!
Sentence Types for Early Elementary
Students younger than fourth grade will typically learn one batch of sentence types, broken out by their function and punctuation type.
Declarative Sentences
Declarative sentences make statements or express facts, opinions, or information. This sentence type also ends with a period.
Interrogative Sentences
An interrogative sentences asks questions. They end with a question mark and start with either an auxiliary verb or one of the following question words:
- What
- When
- Why
- Where
- Who
- How
Imperative Sentences
An imperative sentence gives commands, instructions, or requests. They can be phrased in a way that sounds polite or forceful. Imperative sentences usually lack a subject because the pronoun you is implied.
Exclamatory Sentences
The final type of sentence taught at this grade level is exclamatory. These convey strong emotions, surprise, excitement or emphasis. They often begin with "What" or "How" and end with an exclamation mark.
Sentence Types for Upper Elementary
Older students learn more complex sentence types, including a type that's literally named complex!
Simple Sentence
A simple sentence contains one independent clause and expresses a complete thought.
A good starting point for teaching sentence types, these sentences all contain a subject and a predicate, and they provide the foundation for understanding the basic structure of a sentence.
Compound Sentence
Compound sentences contain two or more independent clauses, and a coordinating conjunction joins them together. This type offers an entrance into discussing the different comma rules, as compound sentences always need a comma inserted before the conjunction.
Teaching compound sentences also allows students to explore relationships between ideas by connecting two or more independent clauses, and expressing contrasting, additive or causal relationships.
Complex Sentence
A complex sentence contains one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.
This type not only helps students better understand the difference between independent and dependent clauses, but it can help kids better understand subordination. With complex sentences, students learn to express cause and effect and conditionality in their writing.
Compound-Complex Sentence
A sentence that contains two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause is considered a compound-complex sentence.
These help our students express more intricate relationships between ideas.
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Types of Clauses Anchor Charts
Introduce your students to the types of sentence clauses with a set of printable Types of Clauses Anchor Charts.
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Sort It Out! - 4 Types of Sentences Practice Activity
Practice sorting and matching examples of the four types of sentences (command, statement, question, exclamation) with a 1st Grade Types of Sentences Practice Game.
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Types of Sentences Posters
Display a set of types of sentences posters to help your students discover various types of sentences.
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Statement, Question, Command, Exclamation – Poster
Discover the features of statement, question, command, and exclamation sentences with a printable Types of Sentences poster.
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Sentence Trains - Sentence Building Activity
Teach your first graders about sentence types and punctuation with a fun Sentence Building Activity.
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Types of Sentences - Sentence Strips Activity Pack
Use our Sentence Strips Activity pack to teach your students about statements, commands, questions, and exclamation sentences.
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Statement, Question, Command and Exclamation Sentence Match-up Cards
Teach 1st and 2nd graders about the four types of sentences with a printable sentence types matching activity.
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SPLAT! Types of Sentences Card Game
Play SPLAT!, a types of sentences game to help your students learn to identify statement, command, question, and exclamation sentences
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Sentence Types Quiz (1st Grade)
Assess your students ability to identify types of sentences and their matching punctuation with a printable Sentence Types Quiz for 1st grade.
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Emoji-Sentence Sorting Activity (1-2)
Teach your students about statement, command, exclamation, and question sentences with our Emoji Sentence sorting activity.
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Super Sentence Game - Statement, Command, Exclamation & Question
Turn sentence structure practice into an exciting game with the Super Sentence Game for 1st grade and 2nd grade.
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Statement, Question, Command & Exclamation Sentences Teaching Slides
Introduce statement, command, question, and exclamation sentences with an interactive teaching slide deck.
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Statement, Question, Command, Exclamation – Cut and Paste Worksheet
Identify statement, command, question, and exclamation sentences with a Types of Sentences Cut and Paste worksheet for 2nd grade.
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Cupid's Compound Sentences Valentine's Day Activity
Build some sweet sentence writing skills using a fun Valentine’s Day Compound Sentence interactive activity.
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Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences Sort
Practice reading, identifying, and writing simple, compound, and complex sentences with a sorting activity.
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Complete and Incomplete Sentences Cut and Paste Worksheet
Sort 6 phrases by whether they are incomplete and complete sentences with this cut & paste worksheet.
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Types of Sentences Sorting Worksheet
A cut and paste sorting worksheet to practice identifying the four types of sentences.
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Types of Sentences Review
A worksheet to review the four types of sentences.
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Complete and Incomplete Sentence Sort Worksheet
Practice sorting incomplete and complete sentences.
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Roll and Write – Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences
Practice writing simple, compound, and complex sentences with our Roll and Write activity.
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Ending Punctuation Worksheet
A worksheet to practice ending punctuation.