Grammar & Punctuation

What this covers

• Identifying nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions and conjunctions in a sentence, and explaining the job each word does
• Subject-verb agreement, including sentences where a phrase separates the subject from the verb, and regular plus irregular past-tense verbs (went, brought, caught, taught)
• Commas in a series, after introductory words and phrases, in dates and addresses, and before a conjunction joining two complete sentences
• Apostrophes for contractions and for singular and plural possessives, including the its / it's distinction
• Punctuating dialogue: quotation marks, comma before the quote, and end punctuation inside the closing marks
• Fixing fragments, run-ons and comma splices by joining sentences with and, but, so, because, or by splitting them

Where learners get stuck

Writing an apostrophe in plurals (three dog's) and leaving it out of possessives (the dogs bowl)

Students learn the apostrophe as 'the mark that goes with an s' before they learn what it means. Until ownership and shortening are treated as two separate reasons for the mark, the apostrophe drifts to any s.

Matching the verb to the nearest noun instead of the subject: 'The box of crayons are on the table.'

The ear hears 'crayons are' and it sounds fine. Third and fourth graders rarely strip out the prepositional phrase to find the true subject, so the plural noun sitting right before the verb wins.

Joining two complete sentences with just a comma: 'It was raining, we stayed inside.'

Students correctly learn that commas mark a pause, and there is a real pause there when the sentence is read aloud. The rule they still need is that a comma alone cannot hold two sentences together.

What a session looks like

A typical 25-30 minute session opens with the learner reading or hearing two or three sentences and saying aloud what needs fixing and why. Evelyn then works through one focus rule at a time, giving sentences that get progressively trickier, and asks the student to justify each correction in their own words. Because it is voice-based, the student often dictates a corrected sentence including the punctuation ('comma, then quote marks'), which surfaces gaps that copying a model sentence can hide. Sessions end with the student building two or three original sentences that use the day's rule.

Helpful to know first

• Can write a complete sentence with a capital letter and end punctuation
• Knows what a noun and a verb are, even loosely
• Reads at roughly a second-grade level or above, enough to follow a sentence read aloud and repeat it back

Questions

What grammar should a 3rd, 4th or 5th grader know?

By the end of third grade most students are expected to use plural and possessive nouns, regular and irregular verbs, simple verb tenses, and commas in a series and in addresses. Fourth grade adds progressive tenses, prepositional phrases, relative pronouns, run-on and fragment correction, and quotation marks in dialogue. Fifth grade adds perfect tenses, correlative conjunctions (either/or, neither/nor), commas after introductory elements, and consistent tense across a whole piece of writing.

My child knows the rules but still makes the same mistakes when writing. Why?

Recognising a rule on a multiple-choice item and applying it while composing are different skills. Sessions here spend most of the time on production - the student says or dictates their own sentences and corrects them - rather than on identifying errors in someone else's.

Does my child need to memorise parts of speech by name?

Naming them matters because teachers, tests and writing feedback all use the terms, but the names are taught alongside what the word does in a sentence. A student who can point to the verb and explain why it changed form is in better shape than one who can recite a definition.

Can this help with a specific worksheet or homework assignment?

Yes. A learner can describe the assignment or read the sentences aloud, and the session will work through the same rule with extra examples. The focus is on the student explaining and producing corrections, not on being given answers to copy down.