Basic Grammar Concepts and Skills

How to Teach Your Child Basic Grammar

Parts of Speech

Beginning in first grade, students learn to recognize parts of speech, such as nouns, verbs and adjectives. Every sentence must have at least a noun and a verb. To help your child identify these parts in a sentence, provide him with crayons and a paragraph from a book that he's already read. Then, ask him to circle the nouns in green, the verbs in red and the adjectives in blue. Next, have him write his own sentence using a noun, verb and at least two adjectives.

Nouns

For your child to use nouns correctly, she must first know about the different types. Common nouns can be people, places or things. Possessive nouns show possession; for instance, 'The girl's pencil fell off her desk.' In this case, girl's is a possessive noun. Finally, a proper noun is the name of something specific, like New York City or the White House. Nouns may also be replaced by pronouns, like 'him,' 'they' or 'she.'

Verbs

Students learn to conjugate verbs - which are action words, like 'walk' or 'jump' - so that the subject and verb agree. For instance, I jump, but he jumps. By second grade, students are introduced to irregular verbs, like 'drink' and 'sit'. These verbs do not follow the typical conjugation pattern, which makes them tricky to use.

To practice, play a version of Simon Says. When you use the correct form of the verb in a sentence, your child has to do it. However, when you use the wrong verb form, then your child should do nothing. If you said, 'I sitted down,' then your child should do nothing. If you said, 'I sat down,' then your child should sit.

Adjectives

Words that describe a noun are called adjectives. For instance, 'The small, brown dog barked at the talkative squirrel.' In this sentence, small and brown describe the dog, and talkative describes the squirrel. Practice at home by having your child come up with as many adjectives as he can for himself.

Tenses

Early on, students learn to write sentences in the past, present and future tenses. To give your child practice using these different forms, ask her to write a story about what she did yesterday, what she's doing today and what she plans on doing tomorrow. In early elementary school, these sentences will be simple, like:

I swam yesterday.

Today, I swim.

Tomorrow, I will swim.

Later in elementary school, your child will learn about progressive forms, like:

I was swimming.

I am swimming.

I will be swimming.