Grammar Essentials for age 9

4

Nouns, verbs, pronouns, prepositional words, connectives, pronouns Nouns-  special names begin with capital letters Describing words (make sentences more interesting) Comparative nouns Collective nouns More (-er) most (-est) Singular and plural nouns Verbs regular  past tense (-ed) Use past tense consistently Use verb tenses with increasing accuracy in speaking and writing Did/ done (has), catch /caught , give/ gave Verbs is/are, was/ were Verb tense: present, past, future Adverb (-ly) (how words) Find good adverbs to describe the verb Plurals (s, es) more than one Articles a and an Use of article an with words beginning with silent h in an hour Owning words (pronouns) my, his, her, its, yours Opposite words Person verb agreement (I run, you run, he runs, they run) Noun / pronoun/ verb agreement ( I ma, they are, we are, he is) Verb / noun agreement Comparative adjectives e.g. long, longer, longest Connectives ‘and’ and ‘but’  to join two simple sentences Collective nouns –e.g.  a team of players Abstract nouns e.g.  feelings, thoughts Main clause & dependent clause Figures of speech – similes, metaphors, personification Phrases, sentences & paragraphs Other connectives: When, because, until, before, Use these to form complex sentences (dependent clause) Teach sentence with two verbs of equal weight is a compound sentence More connectives Until, before, after, unless, if Use alternative (powerful) adverbs and adjectives to make writing more interesting Direct and indirect speech Investigate word classes e.g. Noun (pleasure) Adjective (pleasant) Verb(please)  Adverb (pleasurably)   Adverbial phrases answer the questions: how, where, when or why e.g. Last night, Danielle drove her car carefully down the road, as it was snowing heavily. How did she drive – carefully (adverb) Where did she drive – down the road (adverb- where the verb is happening) When did she drive? Last night (adverb- when the verb happened) Teach: Complex sentence contains a main clause and a subordinate clause. Complex sentence can be made up of a single clause(a phrase with one verb) and one or more noun, adjectival or adverbial clauses

Capital letter for names Capital letter for start of  a sentence Capital letter for personal pronoun I Capital letter for personal titles (Mr, Mrs) Use full stop for ending sentences Use of full stop for abbreviation Use of full stop for when a word has been made shorter Use question marks for questions words – who, when, how, what, where, which Use comma when we take a breath Use comma in a list use comma to separate group of words use comma to separate connectives that come in pairs in sentences e.g. neither  - nor, use comma to separate a subordinate clause from the main clause in a sentence Use of exclamation mark to Mark surprise, humour, joy Show fear, anger, pain, danger, giving an order or shouting identify speech marks in reading understand basic conventions of speech punctuation Shortening words using full stops or the high comma Use of apostrophe for ownership /possession To show possession: The girl’s shoe The girls’ shoes Use in abbreviation – to show where letters are missing: don’t (do not) For some unusual plurals: 7’s and 9’s; and p’s and q’s ; and A’s and B’s Basic rules for apostrophising: To show possession A single noun add s, Jane’s hat A plural noun ending in s, add ‘ boys’ bags A plural noun not ending in s, add s – women’s bags Boy’s hat, boys’ hats Other uses of capitalisation: Personal pronoun I Each line of a poem Begin exact words spoken in inverted commas Words in titles Punctuation to master: Respond to punctuations ‘ . ? ! ,  “  “ ; : - ( ) -- ...  in reading