Introducing

Teaching Complex Sentence Writing

Using Children's Books

THE DIFFERENCE

Deceptively Simple Routines. Impressive Results.

Most programs teach what to write. This series teaches students how to write it.

Built Around the Books Teachers Already Use

No new curriculum. No extra planning. Sentence work is woven directly into the knowledge-rich books already in your lessons — a natural fit.

Builds Command of Cohesive Devices

Students don't just learn about conjunctions, appositives, and dependent clauses — they learn to wield them. The result? Writing that's clear, sophisticated, and unmistakably theirs.

Supports Comprehension and Discussion

This is sentence work that pulls double duty. Students write more precisely, talk more confidently about ideas, and start recognizing these same structures in the texts they're reading.

Ready to Use With Minimal Prep

Open it and start teaching. It's as simple as that. A dozen sentence-writing prompts and sample responses per children's book — all easy to scaffold and differentiate. No scrambling. No reinventing. Just results.

WHERE WRITING BUILDS KNOWLEDGE

Fascinating Themes. Rich Texts.

Stronger Writers.

Every volume explores a captivating theme so students build knowledge, vocabulary, and writing skills all at once. Purchase individual volumes, or choose the Compilation Volume, which combines all activities from Volumes 1 through 4 within a grade-level band into one complete resource.

Grades 1 & 2

Explore big ideas — from the wonder of reading to resilience in the face of storms, the ways creatures adapt to thrive and how one beloved story is retold across different cultures.

  • V1 The Joy of Reading

  • V2 Curious Creatures

  • V3 Storms and Strength

  • V4 Cinderella Stories Around the World

  • Compilation Volume

Grades 2 & 3

Learn about nature's cycles through the turning seasons, the legends and real stories of the American West, the courageous men and women who fought for civil rights, and the surprising connections between the food we eat, where it comes from, and how our bodies use it.

  • V1 Changes in Seasons

  • V2 Westward, America!

  • V3 Standing Up for Civil Rights

  • V4 Food for Thought

  • Compilation Volume

Grades 3 & 4

Delve into the science of the sea, the wonders of the universe, the courage it takes to call a new place home, and the creative genius behind some of history's greatest art and innovation.

  • V1 Oceans of Wonder

  • V2 Spacebound!

  • V3 Finding Home

  • V4 Inspired to Create

  • Compilation Volume

RESOURCES

Take a Closer Look

Download the series overview and complete list of children's books titles to explore the themes, titles, and specific sentence writing activities across all grade bands.

Series Overview Brochure

Get a quick overview of the series, including how it works and what makes it different.

Children's Book Titles by Volume

See every children's book used across the 15 volumes — organized by grade band and theme.

Please note that the series includes the sentence-writing activities for each title, but the children's books themselves are sold separately.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Ready to Go Deeper?

For schools and districts looking for more than a resource — the series comes to life with expert-led training built around the lessons teachers are already teaching.

Tailored to deliver results,

every step of the way.

This training builds educators' understanding of how sentence-level writing strengthens reading comprehension, academic language, and students' ability to express complex thinking — using the curriculum and children's books already in classrooms.

INSIDE THE TRAINING

One Day. Lasting Impact.

Build students' knowledge and sentence writing skills at the same time.

Real Practice, Ready to Use, With Real Results

A Full Day Built Around Training for Real Classrooms

This 6-hour onsite training gives teachers explicit, hands-on practice with the sentence structures that matter most — dependent clauses, conjunctions, appositives, cohesive ties, and more. Teachers engage in the same activities their students will complete — like crafting Because But So Statements to express cause, contrast, and result — so the transition from training to teaching is seamless. Follow-up coaching is also available to keep the work moving forward through side-by-side coaching support, in-the-moment feedback, and analysis of real student writing.

Grounded in Research and Focused on Results

The Instructional Focus and Why It Works
Examine why sentence construction matters, how it directly affects reading comprehension, the oral-written language gap, seven core sentence structures found in academic texts, sentence expansion and combining, cohesive devices, and what explicit instruction looks like in practice — all connected to the content that's already being taught. Sessions are separated by grade level so the language demands and examples reflect what teachers actually experience in their classrooms.

  • Why many students share great ideas during discussions but struggle to write them clearly

  • Using shared knowledge and content-rich instruction to manage cognitive load

  • Seven core sentence structures that frequently appear in academic texts

  • Sentence expansion and combining to build syntactic control

  • Teaching students to recognize and use cohesive devices in complex texts

  • Creating prompts that require synthesizing ideas and expressing relationship

Support for EVERY Learner

Differentiated for All Students
Educators leave with concrete strategies for adjusting sentence complexity, scaffolding, and pacing — plus specific supports for multilingual learners including sentence frames, oral rehearsal, and contrastive analysis of English syntax. Sample prompts, assessment rubrics, and modeling scripts are included.

Your Students Are Ready

Take the next step and see the difference.

Available for schools and districts — customized for your curriculum and your students.

Or call (888) 505-2029

Proudly partnering with schools and districts since 2008

Crosswalk Education provides professional learning and instructional resources for K-5 schools and districts nationwide. To learn more about training, coaching, or the Teaching Complex Sentence Writing Using Children's Books series, visit crosswalkpd.com or call (888) 505-2029.

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