Nouns, Adjectives, Verbs and Adverbs (Parts of Speech/ Word Class)

Noun – A naming word for a person, place or thing. E.g. boy table school

Adjective– A describing word for a noun E.g. a tall boy a wide table a large school

Verb – An action or doing word. E.g. jump run read sing cook

Adverb – A word that adds more meaning to a verb. A word that describes how you did some
thing. E.g I sang loudly He ran quickly I slept soundly

Prepositions – A part of speech that indicates the relationship, often spatial, of one word to anoth-
er. For example, “She paused at the gate”; “This tomato is ripe for picking”; Some common preposi-
tions are at, by, for, from, in, into, on, to, and with.

Types of Nouns:
Proper Nouns – a specific noun that always begins with a capital letter. The name of something.
E.g Asda, Miss Reid, London, Monday, Africa, June.

Common Nouns – regular nouns that do not require a capital letter. E.g box, chair, table, comput-
er, country.

Pronouns – a word that replaces a noun. E.g He, she, they, we, it

Question Marks - ? Vowels and Consonants

Always go at the end of a sentence when a
question is being asked. There are 26 letters in the alphabet and 5 are
Where did you go after school? vowels – a, e, i, o and u.

Have you revised your tables? The other 21 letters are called consonants.

Are you hungry?

 Using the Apostrophe Correctly
An apostrophe is used for two reasons:
1.contraction- joining 2 words together,
i.e. you are=you’re there are=there’ll do not=don’t will not = won’t shall not = shan’t

2.to show ownership - when something belongs to someone, it goes before the ‘s’, i.e. Mark’s book
Gran’s glasses

* if it belongs to more than one person like a pair or a group, the apostrophe goes after the ‘s’,
E.g. the girls’ markers, the boys’ football team
* if a word is already plural, e.g children or mice, you just add an apostrophe before the ‘s’ as
normal.
E.g. the children’s pens, the mice’s cheese

Conjunctions
When you have two or more short, simple sentences which are of equal weight you can join them
together using special words called conjunctions.
Example Conjunctions
e.g. ‘I don’t like pizza.’ is a simple sentence.
‘I like pasta.’ is also a simple sentence. and but or yet for
You can put these together to make one, longer and
more interesting compound sentence using a
so if that while before
conjunction - I don’t like pizza, but I like pasta.
Another example:
unless because although
I went to the shop and I bought some milk.

Homophones Tricky Homophones

Homophones are two words that sound the Homophones that children often confuse are:
same but are often spelt differently, and have To—indicating direction
different meanings. Two—the number 2
e.g one and won Too—indicating an abundance of something
be and bee Your—belonging to you
flower and flour You’re—contraction for ‘you are’.
to, too and two
 Direct Speech

We use direct speech to show the words actually spoken by a person. We use quotation marks
(speech marks) to show direct speech. The speech marks go around the spoken words.
E.g
"How old are you?" the man asked.
The little boy looked at the man for a minute and then said, "I am 6 years old."

You start the speech marks before the first word spoken.
E.g. He walked on and said, “Good to see you.”

You close the speech marks after the last word they speak, not at the end of each sentence.
E.g. “Would you like something to drink?” Dan asked.

When someone new speaks you must start a new line.

E.g. “Thank you. Do you have any cola?” John requested.
“Of course,” Dan answered.

The first word of a new piece of speech must have a capital letter.
E.g. Emma smiled and said, “Perfect!”

The same rules of punctuation must be used in speech such as commas and question marks.
E.g. “Do you want ice?” he continued.

If the speech is broken up in the sentence, you must open and close your speech marks each
time the person speaks.
E.g “I’m freezing!” exclaimed Simon; “Can someone please grab my jacket?”.
 Clauses
Clause: In grammar, a clause is a group of words containing a verb. Sentences contain one or more
clauses.

Main Clause: A clause which makes sense on its own e.g Emma went for a run

Subordinate clause: cannot stand alone as a sentence; it relies on the main clause to make sense
e.g Emma went for a run even though it was raining.

Simple sentence: a sentence with only one clause (only one verb) e.g It was raining.

Compound sentence: two or more clauses joined together using a connective (e.g for, and, but)
E.g James ran quickly but Zoe won the race.

Complex sentence: a sentence composed of at least one main clause and one subordinate clause,
joined by a connective. E.g the students are studying because they have a test tomorrow.

Embedded clause: this is used to add extra information in a sentence using words such as who, which
and that. E.g The boy, who was only seven, could play the piano.

Using Commas
Commas in Lists:
Commas are used to separate items in a list. We do not use a comma before the word ‘and’.
 I bought grapes, apples, bananas, bread and cereal in the shop.
 Turn around, pick up your shoes, put them away and then come join us at the table.
 In the morning I have a shower, get dressed, eat my breakfast and brush my teeth before half
past seven.

Commas for Clauses: (Children find this quite tricky!)

Some sentences can be broken up into smaller sentences. These simple sentences are called clauses.
She ran down the road but he chose to walk.
This sentence is made up of two clauses, both of which could work on their own as simple sentences.
We use clauses to explain to children when to use a comma to help break up longer sentences, or to
add detail to shorter sentences.
e.g Bob is very tired.
Bob, having not slept well, is very tired.
Or: The dog tripped and fell.
The dog, who wasn’t looking where he was going, tripped and fell.
The commas go around the extra information in the sentence. (embedded clause, see above) If the
words inside the commas where removed the sentence would still make sense.
 Alliteration
Alliteration happens when words that start with the same sound are used close together in a phrase or
sentence. The sound is usually a consonant and the words don’t have to always be right next to one
another.

One of the fun features of alliteration is when it becomes a tongue twister

Examples:
· The big bad bear attacked all the little bunnies in the forest.

· Shut the shutter before it makes you shudder

· Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers

· She sells seashells on the sea shore.

Similes Metaphors

A simile is a figure of speech that compares Metaphors, are another way to describe an
two different things in an interesting way. object, by likening it to something else.
A simile always uses the words ‘like’ or ‘as’ to However, unlike a simile, a metaphor does not
compare on thing to another. compare tow objects but instead says one ob-
Often similes are common expressions we use
ject is another.
in everyday speech.

E.g E.g

 As light as a feather · The snow is a white blanket.

· The hospital was a refrigerator.

 As heavy as a rock
· The classroom was a zoo.
 As fresh as a daisy.
· America is a melting pot.

· Her lovely voice was music to his ears.

· Life is a rollercoaster.
 Synonyms and Antonyms
Synonyms are words which are similar in meaning, e.g happy is a synonym for joyful.

Antonyms are words which are opposite in meaning e.g miserable is an antonym for happy.