Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences Review Made Easy!

Simple, compound, and complex sentences are essential to academic writing. Writing becomes boring, monotonous, and sounds robotic without variation in the types of sentences used. Encourage your students to expand their writing by practicing their skills with simple, compound, and complex sentences. This activity will help students review their knowledge of these sentence structures.

This activity requires students to 

• Read sentences to determine if they are simple, compound, or complex and sort them into the correct categories. 
• Record their sorted sentences onto their recording sheet. 
• Use the answer key to check their answers.

By practicing this skill in an engaging way, students can strengthen their ability to identify and use these types of sentences more quickly and accurately in academic texts.

Tips for Differentiation + Scaffolding 

A team of dedicated, experienced educators created this resource to support your English Language Arts lessons. 

If you have a mixture of above and below-level learners, check out these suggestions for keeping students on track with the concepts: 

🆘 Support Struggling Students

Help students who need help understanding the concepts by

• Provide read-aloud accommodations if needed.
• Partner students together to complete the activity.
• Complete the activity in a small group or one-to-one session.
• Have students complete the sorting component only and bypass the recording sheet.
• Provide a Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentence Anchor Chart for reference during completion.

➕ Challenge Fast Finishers

• Encourage fast finishers to change the simple sentences in the sort into compound or complex sentences.
• Have students edit or revise their writing to include expanded sentences.

Plan lessons for all ability levels with our 10 Best Scaffolding Strategies! 

Easily Prepare This Resource for Your Students

Use the dropdown icon on the Download button to choose between the PDF or Google Slides version of this resource. A recording sheet and answer key are also included with this download.

Print on cardstock for added durability and longevity. Place all pieces in a folder or large envelope for easy access. 

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Kiri, an Illinois teacher, and Teach Starter Collaborator, created this resource. 

Don’t stop there! We’ve got more activities and resources that cut down on lesson planning time:  

teaching resource Four Types of Sentences Poster Collection - Primary and Intermediate Display these posters highlighting the four types of sentences and teach your students to use varied sentence types in their writing. teaching resource Roll and Write – Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences Practice writing simple, compound, and complex sentences with our Roll and Write activity. teaching resource Simple, Compound, and Complex Sentences PowerPoint A 23-slide editable PowerPoint template that introduces simple, compound, and complex sentences.