AD1 because clauses in answer to why question or in discourse as single clause

Link with Q9 – answering ‘why?’

You will need:

• Cause and effect pictures.
• Small figures/toys.
• ‘Why’ chevron shape (laminated) with ‘because’ underlined in orange.
• Whiteboard/pen.

App settings:  Turn on ‘why’ chevrons:

Intervention steps:

1. Select a very obviously linked pair of cause and effect pictures, e.g. boy crying / dropped ice-cream. Show the child just the ‘effect’ picture at first.  Make sure all the ‘because’ clauses/reasons actually occur before the main clause at this stage, e.g. do not use: “The boy cried because he didn’t want to go to the dentist”.

2. Ask the child to make up a sentence about the ‘effect’, e.g. “The boy is crying”. Write this on the whiteboard.

1. Say: “I wonder what made the boy cry?”  Get the child to come up with possible reasons, e.g. he got hurt, he is lost, he broke something. Praise the child for any potentially correct guesses and then say: “Well, I know why the boy is crying” and show the cause picture.

2. Ask the child to make up a sentence about this picture, e.g. “The ice-cream is on the floor” or “He dropped his ice-cream“. Write this sentence on the ‘why’ chevron shape after the orange ‘because’ .

3. Read the whole sentence again, i.e. “The boy is crying because the ice cream is on the floor.” Point to the chevron and say: “This part of the sentence tells us the reason the first part happened (point to whiteboard). The chevron tells us ‘why'”.

Say: “Can you tell me why the boy is crying?” Point to the chevron and help the child to answer with the subordinate phrase, starting with ‘because…’

4. Repeat with multiple examples. Reiterate each time that the ‘why‘ chevron part of the sentence tells us the reason and the reason part of the sentence starts with ‘because’.