Quick tips for grammar: I or me?
In this article, I take an aspect of grammar that trips up children and adults - whether to use I or me in a sentence.
Which of the following sentences is correct?
The bus waited for Sam and me.
The bus waited for Sam and I.
If you said sentence one, you are correct. If you said sentence two, you are incorrect but you are not alone. In recent Smashing Sentences training around half of course attendees agreed with you. This article is for you but it’s also for anyone looking for ways to help children choose I or me.
So take five minutes, and let me walk you through two aspects of grammar that are essential for getting it right, and a quick and dirty trick for children to use when they’re not quite sure.
Pronouns
Let’s start with I and me. They are personal pronouns so ensuring children recognise pronouns and understand that they take the place of nouns or noun phrases in sentences is essential.
Step 1: Quiz your children to check their understanding of pronouns.
Subject, verb, object
To make the correct choice between I and me, your children need to determine whether the pronoun is being used as the subject or object in a sentence. The Golden Rule is:
“It’s I when you are referring to the subject of a sentence. It is me when referring to the object.”
This means you will need to establish how well your children understand the different elements of a clause - in this case: subject, verb, object. And that this links to their understanding of pronouns because they can take the place of nouns in a sentence, and therefore be the subject or object of a sentence.
Step 2: Check the children’s understanding of the clause elements subject, verb, object*.
Subject, Verb, Object
Children need to identify subject, verb, object and recognise that the subject and object can be replaced by pronouns.
Image from Primary English Skills Set: I or Me?
Let’s return to our first example:
The bus waited for Sam and me.
It’s correct because the pronoun me is being used as part of the object element (Sam and me) in the sentence.
Quiz
Look at these examples and test yourself to decide which are right or wrong:
Jo and me baked a cake.
The downpour drenched Fran and me.
Dante and I played chess today.
The window was broken by Jim and I.
Answers below.
A dirty trick
There is a quick and dirty shortcut should your children need it, which could prove particularly helpful when proofreading their writing for accuracy. Simply test a sentence by removing the other person. If it sounds right, it’s correct; if it doesn’t, it’s wrong!
Jo and me baked a cake.
Jo and me baked a cake. ❌
Me baked a cake sounds wrong so the choice of pronoun should be I.
Dante and I played chess today.
Dante and I played chess today. ✔️
I played chess today sounds right so the choice of pronoun is correct.
Dirty trick warning! As a method it does work - so long as you know it sounds right. And for children learning English as an additional language or for those that just can’t tune their ears into what sounds right, it won’t help. This is why knowing subject – I, object -me, is the key to unlocking this particular grammar puzzle.
For a resource that supports the content of this article, click below to see our Skills Set: I or Me?
Answers
Jo and me baked a cake. ❌
The downpour drenched Fran and me. ✔️
Dante and I played chess today. ✔️
The window was broken by Jim and I. ❌
*The content in this article was written for sentences containing SVO elements. Not all sentences have an object element but all contain a subject and verb.