In the groove with grammar

After a busy week of training staff teams in creative and engaging ways to teach grammar, I thought I'd do a quick round-up of some of my favourite Primary English grammar ideas and resources.

Grappling with Grammar

Back in October 2012 I posted my very first grammar blog Grappling With Grammar and wrote about one of my favourite grammar books: Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss. I still love this book and I clearly still love the phrase 'Grappling With Grammar' as I've been using the title for my grammar subject knowledge course ever since.  If you've not read Eats, Shoots and Leaves I recommend it highly as an entertaining read about grammar.

Commas in lists

I published this article about teaching Commas in Lists back in February. It's proved very popular and contains some useful ideas for introducing commas in KS1. It also contains a link to the BBC Skills Wise website which contains a really useful online activity for securing your own (or your colleagues') use of commas.

Inverted commas

Teaching children to punctuate speech accurately is harder than we sometimes think. There's an awful lot more going on than simply adding inverted commas. This is why I developed the Primary English Patterns of Direct Speech Posters. You'll find a link to the posters in this post, where you'll also see my progression for teaching speech punctuation in a systematic manner.

Capital Letters and Full Stops

Ah they joy of capital letters and full stops. We all know they should be secure by the end of Y1 and we all know plenty of Y6s who appear to view them as optional tools for written communication. My post Quick Tips for Grammar: Capital Letters and Full Stops is full of handy tips for teaching these most basic ingredients of punctuation and you'll also find a link to my Punctuation Fans in the article.

If you're looking to improve your grammatical understanding, we can provide training for your school or network. For a quote, contact us via info@primaryenglished.co.uk.

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy this one about Getting to Grips with Grammar.