Sentence Structure is the way words fit together properly to make a sentence. Words and punctuation follow in a certain order to make sense and to be grammatically correct.
Click the play button to watch the 2 minute Mini Movie on Sentence Structure with your children and then work through the seven lessons that follow.
Listed below are 7 worksheets with lessons that will support you in helping to teach your children proper English grammar and punctuation in sentences.
Mini Lesson One; The subject of a sentence is what or who the sentence is about. The subject is the noun. The noun is a person, place or object.
The spider climbed. What or who is this sentence about? This sentence is telling us about the spider. The spider is the subject. The spider is the noun.
Examples of nouns or subjects | |||||
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person | doctor | mom | child | dad | teacher |
place | house | island | office | school | post office |
object | ball | shoe | pencil | apples | computer |
Mini Lesson Two; The subject is what or who the sentence is about. The subject is the noun. A noun is a person, place or object.
Examples of persons; nurse, Johnny, fireman, head-teacher. Examples of places; California, museum, bus stop, school, New York. Examples of things; book, carrot, desk, computer.
Mini Lesson Three; A sentence needs a subject and a predicate. The predicate tells the reader what the subject is doing.
Mini Lesson Four; A sentence is a group of words that expresses a complete thought.
Example; A complete sentence; I study at a school near my house. This sentence is a complete thought; therefore, it is a complete sentence. We know who the sentence is about, "I" and what they are doing, "study".
Example; Not a complete sentence; At school near my house. This sentence is not a complete thought; therefore, it is not a complete sentence. There is no subject. We do not know who or what the sentence is about.
Mini Lesson Five; When speaking, people use groups of words which form ideas that make sense. Each group of words which forms an idea is called a sentence. One way to make a sentence is to join a person plus an action together. The person in a sentence is called the noun. The action in the sentence is called the predicate or verb.
Example; hockey player, is the noun. What action would a hockey player do? Hit the puck. Now, if we join the person with the predicate or action together we have a sentence; The hockey player is hitting the puck.
Mini Lesson Six; A sentence is made up of a subject, which is the noun, and a predicate or action, which is the verb. Ask the question, "What is the subject doing?", "What is the verb telling the noun to do?"
Example; The monkey is climbing up the tree. The monkey is the subject or noun and climbing is the predicate or verb. Climbing is what the monkey is doing.
Mini Lesson Seven; A simple sentence is made up of a subject and a predicate. The subject contains a noun. The predicate contains a verb which is the action performed by the subject.
Together, you and your children may assess their work using the marking Sentence Structure Review Rubric found here.
Review and recap sentence structure with your children by reading through the examples below.
A sentence begins with a capital letter. Example; S as in Sam |
A sentence has two parts. One part is the subject or noun. A sentence must name a person, place or object. Example; Sam The other part of a sentence is the predicate which is the action or verb. A sentence must tell what the subject or noun is doing or does. It tells what is happening. Example; played baseball |
Throughout the sentence there should be about a finger-width or a pencil-width space between each word. Keep it neat. Example; Sam_played_baseball. |
A telling sentence must end with a period or a full stop. This is called the punctuation. |
A complete sentence begins with a capital letter, has a subject, a predicate, spaces between the words and ending punctuation. Example; Sam played baseball. |
Tessie's Tips on Writing...Writing what action the subject is doing makes a complete sentence. "What are you doing right now?" I am reading. |
As good as gold sentence structure... | I wrote a perfect sentence today. |
As weak as a kitten sentence structure.... | wrote a sentence today. |
Sensational Sentences need to make sense. | |
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pick what you are going to write about: " I " |
pick what the subject is doing: " wrote " |
I wrote. | |
" I " is the subject or noun in the sentence. | " wrote " is the action or predicate in the sentence. |