LA US D Ele me ntar y Lan gua ge Ar ts 1

La n gu ag e FUN CT IO N S & FO R M S – Pl a nn in g f or La n gu a ge Go al s

LINGUISTIC PATTERNS – FUNCTIONS & FORMS – EXAMPLES

Function (skill) Beginning Level Advanced Level
Asking-Answering What (where, who) is ___ How did the ___ _____ when I wonder why ___ would ___? How would a ____ if ______
Questions ____? ___ ____? but ____? was ____?

Classify Categorize There are ___ types of ____. ___, ___, and ___ all have Both ___ and ___ could be Because ___ have ___, we
Tree Map ____. classified as ___. should categorize them as ___.

Compare & A ___ has ___. They both have ___ but ___ has A ___ is ___ compared to a The way they are both alike is
Contrast A ___ is ___. ____ is a ____. ___. ___. that they both are/have ___, but
A ___ is ___-er than a ___. ___ and ___ are similar what’s different is that they
because they both ___. are/have ___.
___ is ___, but ___ is ___.
They are both ___. They are different because ___ There are several major
Double Bubble ___ and ___ ___. differences between ___ and
___. The most notable is ___.
Describing Actions What is ___ doing? Why did they ___? How did the ___ ____? What caused the ___ to ___?
What is happening to the ___? How does the ___ ___?
Why didn’t the ___ ___?
Bubble or Tree
Describing At first ___ is/are ___. At the beginning of the story he When the story begins, she is Initially, she is/has ___.
Characters She/he is (not) ___. ___. Then he learns ___ (or ___. As a result of ___, she __.
changes) when ___. As a result of ___ she ___.
Bubble or Tree Then, she/he is ___. At the end, he ___.
Eventually, she ___.
By the end of the story she ___.
Describing Setting The setting is ___. The setting of the story is ___. It The story takes place in ___ The story takes place during the
(time, place) The time is ___. is ___ and ___. around ___. This setting is ___. ___ can be described as
The time is ___. This is significant because ___. ___. This setting is significant
Bubble because ___.
important because ___
Distinguish Fact & I like ___. I think ___ because ___. In my opinion, ___ because According to ___, ___.
Opinion ___ is a ___. This is a(n) ___ because we ___. The word ___ is evidence This is a ___ because it
Tree Map It is a ___. can/cannot prove ___. that ___ is a(n) ___. can/cannot be proven.

Source: A FOCUSED APPROACH to Frontloading English Language Instruction (Susana Dutro) – Section 4 1
 LA US D Ele me ntar y Lan gua ge Ar ts 2
La n gu ag e FUN CT IO N S & FO R M S – Pl a nn in g f or La n gu a ge Go al s

LINGUISTIC PATTERNS – FUNCTIONS & FORMS – EXAMPLES

Function (skill) Beginning Level Advanced Level
Distinguish Reality ___ is/are ___. ___ is not true because ___. Since ___, I know ___. ___ is ___. Therefore/
& Fantasy ___ could not really ___. ___ and ___ can ___, so I know The part about ___ is fantasy Consequently, it must be ___.
this story is ___. because ___. I can conclude As a result of ___, we can
Tree Map ___ can ___. ___ can’t ___. ___ because ___. conclude that ___.
Draw Conclusions ___ is/are ___. ___ is ___ because ___. Because the ___, I know ___. ___ is ___. Therefore/
Consequently, it must be ___.
One-sided Multi- ___ is not ___. ___ is ___-er/-est, because ___. I know ___ because ___.
As a result of ___, we can
flow ___ can ___. ___ can’t ___. She feels ___ because ___.
conclude that ___.
Express Needs & We are going to the ___. We We will go to the store because Because I like ___, I’ve always I have always wanted to ___,
Likes want (need, like) a ___. we need ___. I like ___ and wanted ___. If we want to ___, (because ___.)
___. we need ___.
Tree Map ___ wants (needs, likes) a ___. We need a adj noun .
In order to ___, we will need to
___.
Identifying Cause & The ___ are ___. The ___ ___. Because ___, ___. I’m ___, so I would ___. ___, which led to ___ ___-ing.
Effect ___ because ___. Since ___, ___. Due to the fact that ____, ___.
Multi-flow ___, so ____.

Main Idea & Details The main idea is __(1 or 2 words)__. The main idea is __(several words)_. The main idea is ___ which Since the main idea is ___, a
One detail is that ___. means ___. supporting idea might be ___.
Tree Map
___ and ___ are details that
support this idea.
Sequence They went ___. First, ___ went ___. For the past ___, … It has been ___ since ___.
They were going to ___. Then, ___ had to ___. To begin ___ ___. Prior to ____, …
Next, there was ___. Once you ___, then you ___. Just as __action/event___, _____.
Flow
After __action___, the ___.

Source: A FOCUSED APPROACH to Frontloading English Language Instruction (Susana Dutro) – Section 4 2
 LA US D Ele me ntar y Lan gua ge Ar ts 3
La n gu ag e FUN CT IO N S & FO R M S – Pl a nn in g f or La n gu a ge Go al s

LINGUISTIC PATTERNS – FUNCTIONS & FORMS – EXAMPLES

Function (skill) Beginning Level Advanced Level
Comprehension Skills – Teachers prompts and student patterns/stems
Summarize ___ is ___. ___ is ___, and the result is ___. In short, ___, but actually ____. Therefore, ____, because ___.
___ make/makes ___. ___ ___, and then ___. To conclude, _____. Consequently, ___.
In summary, _____.
Flow or Tree
Predict – Confirm It was ___. I predicted that ___. Now I see that my prediction Earlier I predicted ___.
Prediction I thought ___. I found out that ___. was (not) confirmed because I see that my prediction was
Now I think ___. ___. (not) confirmed.
Multi-flow Yes, she ___. No, they
___.
Ask Clarifying What is ___? How many sentences do I write in my What would be a good first sentence for my paragraph? What
Questions Where? paragraph? What should I add? What would you suggest that I add?
Where is it? is missing? What does it mean when the author writes ___?
What is ___ for? What is the difference between ___ I understand ____, but why ____?
and ___?
I don’t understand how they ___.
Where can I find it? I know ___, but I wonder what ___ means.
Will you show me where ___ is? I don’t understand how/why ____ ____.
What does ___ mean?
Identify Author’s The author says “I”. The author uses “I” and “we”. That means it’s in The author uses “I”, “my”, “our”, and “we” – so I can tell it
Point of View Who is telling the story? first person. is written in the first person.
It says “he.” It is third It’s like the author is telling a story that happened The author is part of the action, so it’s first person.
(Teacher prompts) to him. So it is first person.
person. The author refers to the main character as “she” and is
The author tells the story like she is watching it watching what is happening. This means it’s written in
happen. This means it is third person. the third person.

Making I felt ___. ___ reminds me of ___. I have a connection here. I know ____.
Connections It was just like ____. This selection makes me realize ___, and the Even though I’ve never experienced ___, I think it might
other one made me realize ___. be similar to ___.
Source: A FOCUSED APPROACH to Frontloading English Language Instruction (Susana Dutro) – Section 4 3
 LA US D Ele me ntar y Lan gua ge Ar ts 4
La n gu ag e FUN CT IO N S & FO R M S – Pl a nn in g f or La n gu a ge Go al s

LINGUISTIC PATTERNS – FUNCTIONS & FORMS – EXAMPLES

Function (skill) Beginning Level Advanced Level
Comprehension Skills – Teachers prompts and student patterns/stems
Making Inferences The ___ was ___. I get ___ when I ___. As the ____, I became ____. Therefore I think ___.
My ___ was ___. In the story ___, but ___. Since ____, I can infer that ____.
I think ___. The author ___. I can infer (make an That shows ___.
inference)…
Monitor & Clarify I see ___. I know that ___ means ___, so I’ll keep looking I wonder what the writer means by the line: ____.
I think ___ means ___. for clues to help me figure out what ___ means. If I think about what I’ve just read and look at the
I know that ___ means ___. I think the writer illustration, I think I can figure it out.
means ___.
Visualize I see ___. The image I have in my mind is _______. As I read, I can visualize ____, and I can imagine the
I can see ___. When I read this page, I imagine seeing ______. sound of ____.

Inquiry & Who is/are ___? I wonder what will happen if ___. I’d like to know what would/will happen if ___.
What is/are ___?
Investigation Where is/are ___?
I want to find out why ___.
Ask Questions Will the ___ (sink/float)?

Formulate ideas & I think ___ is going to My idea is that ___ is going to ___. My idea-conjecture-theory about this question or problem
conjectures ___. It is ___. I think ___ because ___. is that ___ is going to ___ because ___.

Revise conjectures based I thought ___. When I first started, I thought ___ was going to At first I expected ___ to ___. Then I discovered ___, so
on new information Now I think ___. ___. my new idea-conjecture-theory is ___.
Now I think ___.
Identify new needs, make I learned ___. I learned that ___, so now I think ___. I still need I’m revising my previous conjecture because I’ve learned
new plans
Now I think ___. to know-find out ___. ___. Based on what I found out, I still need to know ___.

Source: A FOCUSED APPROACH to Frontloading English Language Instruction (Susana Dutro) – Section 4 4