Lockdown Day 42 – Grammar Part 1
Literacy
Do you remember being totally confused by grammar at school, and praying that the grammar questions in the school tests came with an example so you knew what a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, conjunction, preposition etc. was???
You are not alone!
Grammar lays the foundation for effective communication in any language. Improper grammar use can affect the meaning and clarity of an intended message, sometimes with rather disastrous effects! Consider the difference in the following two sentences:
Let’s eat Granny.
Let’s eat, Granny.
The inclusion of the simple comma could save Granny’s life!
* GRAMMAR – Part 1 *
Today’s post explores how we can introduce children to grammar in an easy, fun-filled way long before having to just sit in class memorising words that do not really hold much meaning for the child.
NOUNS
Nouns are naming words.
Invite the child to play a game with you. Seat yourselves comfortably and ask the child to fetch an object (cushion). Then another (mug) and another (pebble). After you have amassed a number of objects, ask the child how s/he knew what to bring you? The child should respond that you told her/him what to bring. You can then explain that each of these objects has a name. Therefore, they are NOUNS – naming words.
Keep this conversation going throughout the day – nouns are everywhere!
ADJECTIVES
Once the child has an understanding of nouns, we can add to this knowledge by introducing adjectives (describing words).
Invite the child to play another game with you. As with the Noun Game, ask the child to bring you a [pen] (you will need to make sure you have a number of [pens] available in different colours). Whatever colour [pen] the child brings, tell the child that this is not the [pen] you wanted and send the child off to fetch another one. Repeat the above a number of times. When the child brings you (for example) the red pen, you can then say: “Thank you! Yes, this is the pen I wanted. I wanted the RED pen. Why did you not bring me the red pen immediately?” The child should respond by saying that you did not say WHICH pen you wanted. You can then explain that this is quite correct – you had left out the ADJECTIVE – the word that described the noun.
You can have a lot of fun with these two parts of grammar. Extend this further by walking around the house or garden to identify nouns, and then see how many adjectives you can find to describe the nouns.
A stick can be long, short, twisted, gnarled, smooth, bumpy, prickly, thorny, white, brown, black, clean, dirty… and so on!
Remember to use the words noun and adjective often so that the child starts to connect meaning and understanding to these concepts.
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