Introduction to Language Conventions
Welcome to Language Conventions!
What are Language conventions? In the Ontario Language Curriculum, language conventions are found in the B3 Strand. They encompass three distinct areas:
- Syntax and sentence structure
- Grammar
- Capitalization and punctuation
The Curriculum provides an appendix that outlines a continuum of the language conventions and how they develop over the course of a student’s progression through the grades. It describes the learning as follows:
“The chart indicates a continuum of learning – that is, initial development, consolidation, and
refinement – stretching from Grade 1 to Grade 9. This continuum of learning refers to
the approximate windows of time when students are initially developing, consolidating,
and refining the use of these conventions in their own writing.
While the chart indicates the windows when students are using the given structures in their writing, they will likely be adeptly using and understanding these conventions in oral language much earlier.”
Not only does the curriculum outline the skills and a suggested progression of their development but it gives educators guidance on how best to teach these skills:
“These language conventions need to be introduced and developed within the contexts of
writing, reading, and oral communication, rather than in isolation, so that students can learn
to use them to communicate and comprehend in meaningful ways. Emphasis should be
placed on the function and role of a structure within a sentence, instead of simply its name.
Although learning is embedded in context, instruction should still follow a thoughtful,
purposeful sequence, systematically teaching conventions from simple to complex.
Instruction should focus on supporting students in understanding the function of these
conventions in well-crafted sentences, and in using them to build correct, sophisticated
sentences that effectively communicate meaning.”
The button below provides access to the entire B3 Continuum of the Language Curriculum.
In this first video, we give an overview of the why and how of teaching sentence-level skills.
“…Grammar taught in isolation both correctively and prescriptively yields poor results, but grammar applied to the act of writing has a positive effect.” –Van Cleave, Writing Matters, 2014
