Pol and Pax in the Salty Red Sea - Children's Book Dissection

Pol and Pax in the Salty Red Sea
Nelson ‘New Way’ Series, Orange Level
How The Text Teaches
Syntax
LINEATION
 The sentences are in extended paragraphs on separate pages. There is not one line to a single page, this indicates that the children reading this type of text are at a higher reading level and place less dependence on the amount of visual contextualisation through pictures to understanding the meaning of the text.

SENTENCE TYPES
 There is a mixture of long and short sentences with varying complexity. As a child would now be familiar with short simple sentences there are examples of both compound and complex syntax.
 There is a mixture of both present and past sentences to familiarise children with grammatical structures and to introduce them to more complicated verbs.
 Future: We’ll have to look in our sea and river atlas.”

 Past: “He had caught a small shark.”
 Compound: “They eat a slice of brain food every day and this makes them as clever as they need to be”
 Complex: “They wanted to see which of them could catch the strangest fish”
 There are interrogatives: “Can you please tell me how I can get to the salty red seas”
 Declaratives: “We only east brain food.”
 and Imperatives: “Please go and get it.”


SUBJECT/VERB POSITION
“They wanted to see which of them could catch the strangest fish”
 In the sentence above the phrase ‘which of them’ is the object of the first clause and the subject of the second. This is a far more complicated order than younger texts and so develops their understanding.
 The text however still avoids passive sentences, as this ellipsis can confuse children at this age. (orange level is ages 5-6).