St. Mary’s Catholic Primary School
Grammar Parents’ Forum
Monday 25th January 2016
What does the word “grammar” mean to you? Discuss with someone next to you any words, phrases or feelings that come to mind……………………
“Grammar is the set of language rules that you use, most of the time
unconsciously, to create phrases and
sentences that convey meaning.” (www.vocabulary.com) The phrase in bold is crucial because as stated in English Appendix 2 of The National Curriculum, “The grammar of our first language is learnt naturally and
implicitly through interactions
with other speakers and from
reading.”
Grammar is about making meaning. “Grammar is……the pole you grab to get your
thoughts up on their feet and walking”
“Explicit knowledge of grammar is, however, very important, as it gives us
more conscious control and choice in our
language. Building this knowledge is
best achieved through a focus on grammar
within the teaching of reading, writing
and speaking.” (English Appendix 2 N.C Gov.uk)
Stephen King
As words are the building blocks to
writing, part of our aim when
teaching grammar is to ensure that
children understand the different
word classes and what their functions
are………………..
In Key Stage One, we focus on: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions. Let’s take a tour…………………….
Learning about Words in Year 1 • From singular to plural – making nouns plural by adding the
suffixes s e.g. dog/dogs and es e.g. wish/wishes
• Changing verbs – adding suffixes where no change is needed in the
spelling of the root word e.g.
helping, helped, helper
• From positive to negative – using the prefix un to create a negative effect e.g. unkind, undoing, untie
Word Work in Year 2 • Adding the suffix –ness to adjectives to make nouns
e.g. sad-sadness
• Adding -er to make verbs into nouns e.g.
work-worker
• Adding the suffix –er and –est in adjectives e.g.
tall, taller, tallest
• Adding the suffix –ly to turn adjectives into
adverbs e.g. loudly, clearly
• 1+1=1 or Compounding –
Learning about sentences in Year 1
Children see examples of how words combine to make sentences everyday in school and also, whenever they read. We want them to be able to communicate in a variety of contexts by writing a series of sentences.
Here are some ideas for how you can help to develop their understanding of sentence construction at home………………………
Reconstruct:
Write a sentence together. Print your writing out in big lettering including the full stop. Cut into individual words, including the full stop. Help the children to reproduce the sentence, by holding the cards in front of them.
As you do more of these, collect them together and save for future use.
Expand a sentence
You can build up and develop
sentences by asking questions.
Child: “It’s my birthday today.”
Adult: “How old are you?”
Child: “I am five.”
Adult: “It is your fifth
birthday today.” … and so on…
Sentence Frames can be used to develop
understanding of simple sentence
structures Rabbits like carrots.
Giraffes like leaves.
Cats like
Birds like
I like
Make sure that children have plenty of
regular practise and that they use
capital letters and full stops.
Choose themes which interest your child
and introduce different verbs………
Transforming Sentences Try oral, then written changing of words in well-known sentences…
Jack and Jill went up the hill. … can become… Fred and Kath went down the path! Or…
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall…becomes Humpty Dumpty ran on the road; Humpty Dumpty trod on a toad!
Try some of these online activities to support your child’s understanding of sentences and punctuation
https://roythezebra.com/readinggames/newwindow/capital-letter-beginner-1.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/magickey/adventures/index.shtml
Year One punctuation - . ? ! and capital letters
Developing sentence work in Year 2 • Expanded noun phrases: -giving more
information about nouns
e.g. a blue butterfly, the man in the
moon or for precision when writing
information
e.g. plain flour
• Using a variety of conjunctions (also
referred to as “joining words”) to join
phrases within a sentence
Co-ordinating Conjunctions These join independent clauses that
would otherwise stand alone.
• And joins 2 similar ideas e.g
I like coffee and I drink it often.
• But joins opposite ideas e.g.
I like coffee but I hate tea.
• Or comes before a contrast e.g.
I can make you coffee or tea.
• So is also a useful co-ordinating
conjunction often used in Year 2. It
shows a consequence or result.
Subordinating Conjunctions These join subordinate clauses to main
clauses. They can also be used to join
ideas across sentences or paragraphs……
• When is used to signal time: e.g.
I put my coat on when I go outside.
• If is a conditional conjunction e.g.
I won’t need a coat if I wear my jumper.
• That is used for statements e.g.
I wish that I could fly.
• Because is a causal connective e.g.
Birds can fly because they have wings.
Verb tenses
Children are expected to be able to
choose, and consistently use, the
correct tense in their writing e.g.
• Past tense for recounts and diaries
• Present tense for instructions and
information texts
In addition, pupils are introduced to
the
• Past progressive:
They were playing in the garden
yesterday.
• Present progressive:
What’s my sentence? Children are expected to know and use
the 4 different sentence types:
• Statements – the majority of sentences
I am going to a meeting this
afternoon.
• Questions –
Where are you going?
• Exclamations – don’t always have a
verb
What a fantastic piece of work!
How lovely!
• Commands – start with “bossy” verbs
Put the dirty plates in the
Punctuation in Year Two • Consistent and accurate use of capital
letters, full stops, question marks and
exclamation marks
• Commas to separate items in a list e.g.
Please buy some apples, oranges and
grapes.
• Apostrophes to mark contractions (where
letters are missing) e.g. don’t can’t
won’t
• Apostrophes to mark singular possession
in nouns e.g. The girl’s coat is lost.
The boy’s books are
marked.
Assessment in Key Stage One There will be new SATs as a summative
assessment of children’s English skills
in Reading, Grammar, Punctuation and
Spelling from this May.
It is worth noting that from what we
have seen of the draft spelling test,
elements of grammar will be incorporated
into this. For example, where children
are given days of the week and/or months
of the year as spellings, they are only
awarded a mark if the spelling is
correct and they have used a capital
letter.
NOUNS • Nouns are the biggest word class (everyone and
everything needs a name!)
• A noun is the name of a person, place, animal, thing or idea.
• Nouns can be singular or plural
• They can be proper – or common - ,
• collective – team, or abstract - love. Abstract nouns are those that you cannot see or touch and can be emotions.
• Noun phrases-a phrase is a single piece of information made up of more than one word – it will not contain a subject or a verb
So –the bus – is a noun phrase
the red shiny bus is an expanded noun phrase
Verbs
A verb is a ‘doing’ or a ‘being’ word. It tells us what is happening in the sentence. •The most common verb in the English language is the verb - to be •A verb can be a single word or a group of words which together form the ‘verb phrase’ The children will be playing in the garden. The children have been playing in the garden. The children might be playing in the garden. The children would have been playing in the garden……….. In Year 2, pupils are introduced to t
Adjectives
• An adjective describes ( or modifies) the noun.
• It might sit close to the noun-or be elsewhere in the sentence..
• The silver car stood in the driveway.
• The car in the driveway was silver.
Adverbs
Adverbs modify the verb.
The children were playing.
How?
The children were playing happily.
They tell us how (adverb of manner), when (adverb of time), or where (adverb of place).
Yesterday afternoon, the children were playing happily.
Yesterday afternoon, the children were playing happily, in the garden.
Adverbs can move about the sentence, affecting the emphasis, but not the meaning.
Determiners
Determiners … introduce nouns and show whether they are general or specific. The most common determiners are ‘the’ and ‘a’ Some more determiners: •this cat, that cat, •all cats, every cat, some cats, no cats, each cat •one cat, two cats •his cat, her cat, my cat - can you think of any other categories?
Prepositions
Prepositions express a relationship of meaning between 2 parts of a sentence, usually to do with space or time.
Simple prepositions may include:
about, across, after, at, before, behind, by, down,
during, for, from, to, inside, into, of, off, on, onto,
out, over, round, since, through, to, towards, under,
up, with………….
Pronouns
Pronouns stand in for a noun, I, you, he, she, it, we, they, my, your, his, her, our and their are all pronouns • Pronouns are important for ‘cohesion’.
• If children overuse them, the reader is not sure
who is being discussed. • If they underuse them, the writing can sound
very repetitive and boring.
Conjunctions
Conjunctions are connectives which work inside a sentence in order to join words,
phrases or clauses.
Some examples of conjunctions are:
because, so, while, for, and, but, or, yet, even though, provided that….
What has changed the meaning here?
“Let’s eat Mummy.”
“Let’s eat, Mummy”
What is wrong with this sentence?
There going over their to they’re house.