Syntax

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Syntax

• the rules for constructing sentences
• (Discrete Skills Inventory)

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Parts of Speechimportant to master before
moving on to sentence structure

• Noun-person, place, thing, or idea (girl, school,
  pencil, respect)
• The girl treated me with respect.
• can you pick out the nouns in these sentences?
• My horse loves his blanket.
• The mother went to the store.
• click here to check your answers

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• My horse loves his blanket.
• horse-thing blanket-thing
• The mother went to the store.
• mother-person store-place

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Parts of Speech

• Pronoun-more general word that replaces a noun
  (he, she, it, they, you, I, we, them, us, him,
  her, our)
• Jenny and Sarah played with the jump rope all
  afternoon.
• (now I will replace the nouns with pronouns)
• We played with it all afternoon.
• replace the following nouns with pronouns
• Billy played with Johnny and Timmy.
• The picture belongs to me and Sandra.
• click here to check

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• He played with them.
• He replaces Billy and them replaces Johnny
  and Timmy
• It belongs to us.
• It replaces the project and us replaces me
  and Sandra.

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Parts of Speech

• Proper Noun-a specific person, place, or
  thing-must begin with a capital letter (Jenny,
  Dreaming Summit, Big Mac)
• Would you like to come to the store with me?
• Would you like to come to Bashas with me?
• I have replaced the more general noun with a
  specific one. Try replacing the general nouns
  with specific proper nouns.
• I want to go the restaurant tonight.
• Do you like her?
• click here to check

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• I want to go to McDonalds tonight.
• I replaced the restaurant with McDonalds.
• Do you like Esmeralda?
• I replaced her with Esmeralda.

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Parts of Speech

• Adjectives-a word that describes a noun
  (describes color, feel, how many, how it behaves,
  or how it looks)
• The fluffy rabbit eats carrots.
• (fluffy describes the rabbit)
• Now use one of these words to describe a noun in
  this sentence.
• adjectives- brown, green, happy
• sentence- A hamster eats lettuce.
• click here to check your sentence

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• The happy, brown hampster eats green lettuce.
• The brown hampster eats lettuce.
• The happy hampster eats lettuce.
• The hamster eats green lettuce.

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Parts of Speech

• Verbs-action verbs-something you can do (run,
  jump, sit, talk, write)
• The girl talks to her friend. My dog barks at
  the cat.
• try adding an action verb to this sentence
• The cat _____ after the mouse.
• Verbs-state of being verbs (is, am, are, be)
• The little girl is pretty. They are silly.
• try adding a state of being verb
• I ____ sorry.
• click here to check your sentences

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• The cat runs after the mouse.
• I am sorry.

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Parts of Speech

• Helping Verbs-a word added in front of a verb to
  make a sentence grammatically correct (is, are,
  am, can, will, will not, has, has been, have,
  have been, etc.)
• I am helping her. She is running quickly.
• practice adding helping verbs to these
  sentences.
• She ___ writing a story. They ___ working on a
  project together. I ____ sing a song tomorrow.
• click here to check

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• She is writing a story. She will be writing a
  story. She has been writing a story.
• They are working on a project together. They
  will be working on a project together. They have
  been working on project together.
• I will sing a song tomorrow. I can sing a song
  tomorrow. I will not sing a song tomorrow.

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Sentence Structure

• What makes a sentence complete?
• Subject-who or what the sentence is about
• Predicate-what the subject does (action verb) or
  is (state of being verb)
• as you will see, students need to have a strong
  understanding of nouns and verbs before they can
  move on to this.

Sophia sat.
Mary and I cooked breakfast for my mom.
subject predicate
subject predicate
see if you can find the subject and predicate in
these sentences My dog barked at the cat. Mrs.
Smith asked the students to turn in their
homework. click here to check
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My dog barked at the cat.
subject predicate
Mrs. Smith asked the students to turn in their
homework.
subject predicate
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Sentence Structure

• Compound Sentence-contains two or more
  independent clauses and usually needs a
  conjunction (independent-can be a sentence on its
  own)
• I was late for school, so I had to get a late
  pass.
• Complex Sentence-contains one independent clause
  and one or more dependent clauses (dependent-can
  not be a sentence on its own)
• After the test, I relaxed and read a book.
• can you tell if these are compound or complex?
• I wanted to make a bracelet, but I had to make a
  paper airplane instead.
• While she was walking, a dog came up and licked
  her hand.
• click to check

independent clause independent
clause
dependent clause independent clause
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• I wanted to make a bracelet, but I had to make a
  paper airplane instead.
• two independent clausescompound sentence
• While she was walking, a dog came up and licked
  her hand.
• first clause is dependent and the second is
  independentcomplex sentence.

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Sentence Structure

• Active Voice-the subject does the verb
• The dog bit the boy. (the dog is the subject and
  it is doing the biting or the action verb)
• Passive Voice-the subject is not doing the verb
• The boy was bitten by the dog. (this time the boy
  is the subject but he is not doing the biting or
  the action verb)
• can you tell if these sentences are active or
  passive?
• Dinner is being cooked by Susan.
• Susan is cooking dinner.
• ask yourself if the subject is doing the verb
• click here to check

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• Dinner is being cooked by Susan.
• dinner is the subject but it is not doing the
  cooking so this is passive voice
• Susan is cooking dinner.
• Susan is the subject and she is doing the
  cooking so this is active voice

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Sentence Structure

• Participles-adjectives in verb form, they look
  like verbs but they are adjectives because they
  describe nouns
• Climbing the tree, I was stung by a bee.
• the participle is describing I
• Clawing and hissing wildly, the cat warned the
  dog not to come near him.
• can you find the participle phrase and the noun
  it is describing?
• click here to check

participle phrase
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• Clawing and hissing wildly, the cat warned the
  dog not to come near him.
• participle phrase-clawing and hissing wildly
• noun being described-the cat

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Activities for Practice

• Nouns
• Separate a sheet of paper into three columns
  (four for more advanced). Label each column
  person, place, and thing (idea in fourth column
  for more advanced).
• Give each student a stack of pictures with the
  name of it on the back.
• Students decide if the picture is a person,
  place, or thing and write the word in the
  corresponding column.
• As they progress, you can take away the picture
  and just use words.

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Activities for Practice

• Adjectives
• Gather up several objects.
• Students can verbally describe or write
  descriptions of the objects one at a time.
• Make sure they can say what the noun or object
  is.
• Write or say the noun and adjective in a complete
  sentence.

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Activities for Practice

• Any part of speech (nouns, adjectives, verbs,
  adverbs, prepositions, etc.)
• Get a short picture book.
• Ask the student to point to a picture and
  describe it.
• Read the sentences and ask the student to make a
  list of all the nouns or verbs, etc.