Ah, SPaG. Spelling Punctuation and Grammar (or, as a 10-year-old child who revealed his middle class power level called it, Spaghetti Parmesan and Garlic) is the catch all for the entirety of English grammar. The UK government, in all its wisdom, decided in 2014 that all primary school children should be able to rattle off and use grammar terms as if they were second nature. That these are not really used in secondary school doesn't seem to matter - what we want to create by the end of Year 6 is a bunch of grammar nerds who can construct sentences naturally and, if a sentence isn't working, be able to mechanically go into it and fix it, or improve it. But it's all very well if your child's teacher has set a bunch of fronted adverbial tasks if you, dear parent, need to crack open a dictionary yourself for what a fronted adverbial actually is.
Fronted adverbials have been the cause of a lot of parent's evening drama for me.
However, I actually am a grammar nerd and love all this nonsense! Here's a quick view of the key terms children need to know and should be able to recognise. Again, this is more of a Year 2 based guide, because, as you'll see, these words groups are as large, vast and deep as the depths from which a kraken might leap out. Remember, it's okay to not know these already; I get paid to know these, it's literally my job.
Nouns
Nouns are naming words. Words like dog, tree, rain, car and paint. Easily enough, if you can see it, feel it, smell it or touch it, it's a noun.
Pronouns replace a noun in a sentence. What we look for in a child's writing is if they use pronouns after they've introduced the noun, so it should go from this:
The dog ran into the sea. The dog barked at the kraken.
To this:
The dog ran into the sea. It barked at the kraken.
This shows that the child knows the main subject of the sentence and can replace the important noun while still keeping the meaning clear for the reader (I'm just now seeing that sentence structure is a whole other post, I'll hop on it ASAP).
Proper nouns are the given name for things, people and places. Proper nouns are the only words which need to be capitalised within the sentence. This sentence:
The dog called Bond walked through the streets of Wellington.
Has two proper nouns in it, as Wellington and Bond are given names. This sentence:
The dog walked through the city streets.
Doesn't have any given names in it, so none of the nouns need to be capitalised. A good rule of thumb is that, if the noun needs a the, a or an in front of it, it's not a Proper noun and doesn't need to be captialised.
Later on in primary school, you'll come across abstract nouns, which are the names of things you cannot see. Happiness, sadness, frustration and boredom are things which can be felt and are the names of these emotions. However, happy, sad, frustrated and bored are not nouns, because they are...
Adjectives
Adjectives describe nouns. At Year 2, we'd expect children to be describing nouns by colour, size and maybe age so if your child is writing like this:
The green tree/ the large tree/the old tree
They're doing well! They can move on and up through the ranks if they use adjectival phrases, which is a group of words that further describe the noun. So this:
The green tree.
Turns into this:
The tree with large green leaves and brown bark
Which shows greater description of the tree and that your 8 year old is probably going to be the next Shakespeare or something because this is a tricky one. It takes a lot of practise, so a good way to show this could be to play a version of eye spy around the home, using descriptions of items, such as 'I spy something with four legs and a brown top', instead of the first letter.
For older children, compound adjectives are a good way to make descriptive writing really pop. Compound adjectives are two or more words which can be linked by a hyphen. The first word has to support the second word, so this:
The old-green tree
Isn't correct, while this:
The emerald-green tree
is, because emerald is a further descriptor of green. This:
The tree with emerald-green leaves
Not only uses a compound adjective, but uses it in an adjectival phrase, which is, educationally speaking, flash as hell.
Twinkl, which by now should be worshipped like an ancient forest god by teachers everywhere, have an excellent word mat here https://www.twinkl.co.nz/resource/t2-e-2190-alternative-adjectives-vocabulary-grid which is perfect for finding alternative adjectives to make compounds. A good tip is to stick to colours for compound adjectives - a sprinkling of hyphens in compound adjectives can really make a piece of writing stand out.
Next up, verbs and adverbs, where we finally meet our old friend, the fronted adverbial. Good luck, stay safe, and remember - whatever you're doing to help your child, you're doing great!
Fronted adverbials have been the cause of a lot of parent's evening drama for me.
However, I actually am a grammar nerd and love all this nonsense! Here's a quick view of the key terms children need to know and should be able to recognise. Again, this is more of a Year 2 based guide, because, as you'll see, these words groups are as large, vast and deep as the depths from which a kraken might leap out. Remember, it's okay to not know these already; I get paid to know these, it's literally my job.
Nouns
Nouns are naming words. Words like dog, tree, rain, car and paint. Easily enough, if you can see it, feel it, smell it or touch it, it's a noun.
Pronouns replace a noun in a sentence. What we look for in a child's writing is if they use pronouns after they've introduced the noun, so it should go from this:
The dog ran into the sea. The dog barked at the kraken.
To this:
The dog ran into the sea. It barked at the kraken.
This shows that the child knows the main subject of the sentence and can replace the important noun while still keeping the meaning clear for the reader (I'm just now seeing that sentence structure is a whole other post, I'll hop on it ASAP).
Proper nouns are the given name for things, people and places. Proper nouns are the only words which need to be capitalised within the sentence. This sentence:
The dog called Bond walked through the streets of Wellington.
Has two proper nouns in it, as Wellington and Bond are given names. This sentence:
The dog walked through the city streets.
Doesn't have any given names in it, so none of the nouns need to be capitalised. A good rule of thumb is that, if the noun needs a the, a or an in front of it, it's not a Proper noun and doesn't need to be captialised.
Later on in primary school, you'll come across abstract nouns, which are the names of things you cannot see. Happiness, sadness, frustration and boredom are things which can be felt and are the names of these emotions. However, happy, sad, frustrated and bored are not nouns, because they are...
Adjectives
Adjectives describe nouns. At Year 2, we'd expect children to be describing nouns by colour, size and maybe age so if your child is writing like this:
The green tree/ the large tree/the old tree
They're doing well! They can move on and up through the ranks if they use adjectival phrases, which is a group of words that further describe the noun. So this:
The green tree.
Turns into this:
The tree with large green leaves and brown bark
Which shows greater description of the tree and that your 8 year old is probably going to be the next Shakespeare or something because this is a tricky one. It takes a lot of practise, so a good way to show this could be to play a version of eye spy around the home, using descriptions of items, such as 'I spy something with four legs and a brown top', instead of the first letter.
For older children, compound adjectives are a good way to make descriptive writing really pop. Compound adjectives are two or more words which can be linked by a hyphen. The first word has to support the second word, so this:
The old-green tree
Isn't correct, while this:
The emerald-green tree
is, because emerald is a further descriptor of green. This:
The tree with emerald-green leaves
Not only uses a compound adjective, but uses it in an adjectival phrase, which is, educationally speaking, flash as hell.
Twinkl, which by now should be worshipped like an ancient forest god by teachers everywhere, have an excellent word mat here https://www.twinkl.co.nz/resource/t2-e-2190-alternative-adjectives-vocabulary-grid which is perfect for finding alternative adjectives to make compounds. A good tip is to stick to colours for compound adjectives - a sprinkling of hyphens in compound adjectives can really make a piece of writing stand out.
Next up, verbs and adverbs, where we finally meet our old friend, the fronted adverbial. Good luck, stay safe, and remember - whatever you're doing to help your child, you're doing great!
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