The importance of using correct grammar

One of my readers recently sent me a link to a report undertaken by Website Planet, which highlights the importance of using correct grammar when writing and also checking for typos before publishing. 

The research found that grammatical errors and typos cost money to businesses and individual bloggers relying on income from online advertising.  Visitors arriving on your web pages are more likely to bounce out due to bad spelling and grammar, which means your ad quality score is affected and Google lowers your organic page ranking.  Anything which adversely affects the number of visitors to your site and the impression they have of your product has to be worth consideration.

Children don‘t always realise why we are teaching them to write correctly and check their work for mistakes, so any real-life reason might help. I’m posting the link to the report here for those of you who are interested. https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/grammar-report/

Thank you Virginia!

Finite and non-finite clauses

For a sentence to be complete in English, it requires a finite verb.  A finite verb shows tense and can also show number and person when using the present tense (e.g. ‘sings’ denotes present tense, third person singular). A finite clause or sentence can stand on its own and make sense, e.g.

She is staring into space. (present progressive/continuous)

He was frightened by the traffic. (simple past - passive voice)

She frightened the cat. (simple past)

In the above examples, as in usual sentences, the subject is included.  When present or past participles are used as a non-finite verb, the subject is rarely included and the participle appears on its own.  E.g.

Staring into space – present participle ‘staring’

Frightened by the noise – regular past participle

Lit by a candle - irregular past participle

Past participles often look like the simple past tense with regular verbs having the same –ed suffix. However for irregular verbs (often the verbs coming from Old English), the form is different.  (For more on past participles, click on the past participle label on the right-hand side of my blog.)

Clauses containing non-finite verbs are called non-finite clauses.  Because they don’t contain a finite verb, they can’t be the main clause in a sentence as they would not make sense standing alone as a simple sentence. Therefore, they must stand as a subordinate clause and require a finite clause to complete the sentence.  In this way, complex sentences are formed.  

Staring into space, he heard nothing around him.

Frightened by the noise, the horse reared up.

Lit by a candle, the room looked romantic.

Using participles in non-finite clauses to create complex sentences adds variety to children’s writing. They can also experiment with swapping the clauses around for effect (and investigating the correct punctuation to use).  What is more effective?

Frightened by the noise, the horse reared up.

The horse reared up, frightened by the noise.

We can also add ‘to’ to the base form of the verb to create another non-finite form: the infinitive, e.g. to light, to drive.

To light a candle, you will need a match.

Non-finite clauses encourage children to vary their sentence structure.  In effect, the non-finite construction is filling the same function as a conjunction, by joining two clauses together within a sentence.

Using a past participle to start a relative clause

I have recently received a comment asking about the structure 'The significant percentage of work accomplished on the computer.'  

This is not a sentence as it does not contain a finite verb, but only the past participle ‘accomplished’. The actual structure is a noun phrase containing a relative clause.  However, the relative clause is not fronted by a relative pronoun, but by the past participle verb 'accomplished'.

The = determiner

(significant) percentage of = phrasal quantifier pre-modifying the main noun

work = main noun

accomplished on the computer = relative clause fronted by a non-finite past participle

The subordinate structure ‘accomplished on the computer’ could have been written ‘which was accomplished’.  Often in English we elide the relative pronoun and auxiliary verb to use the non-finite past participle in relative clause position.

So the whole structure is a noun phrase: the main noun work is pre-modified and also post-modified, but cannot stand on its own as a sentence.  You can test this by inserting it into the noun phrase position of sentences.  For example,

The significant percentage of work accomplished on the computer disproved the theory. (SVO structure with phrase in subject position)

The board approved the significant percentage of work accomplished on the computer. (SVO structure with phrase in object position)

If you wanted the original structure to act as a complete sentence, you would need to amend it so that ‘accomplished’ no longer appears as a non-finite verb:

The significant percentage of work was accomplished.  

(SV- the auxiliary verb ‘was’ + past participle ‘accomplished’ forms a passive verb.)

The significant percentage of work was accomplished.  

(SVC with ‘accomplished acting as an adjective in the complement position)

Pre- and post-modification

I was recently asked to explain pre- and post-modification.  

Pre- and post-modification are terms used for words, phrases and clauses that add information to a noun. By adding these you create a noun phrase.  

Premodification is where information is added before the noun, e.g determiners, adverbs, adjectives:

Post-modification is adding a phrase or relative clause (which is a type of subordinate clause) after the noun.

If we use the noun 'horse', we can, for example, add premodifiers:

the (determiner)

very (adverb)

beautiful (adjective)

and post-modifiers:

with the flowing mane (prepositional phrase)

or

which could gallop like the wind (relative clause because it starts with a relative pronoun - which - and includes a verb 'could gallop')

The very beautiful horse with the flowing mane...

The very beautiful horse which could gallop like the wind...

Determiners

Determiners usually start a noun phrase and are words which give us information about whether the noun is specific or general.  For instance, in the sentence 'This cat would be the best for me', the word 'this' indicates we are talking about a specific cat.  'A cat' or 'any cat' would not indicate any specific cat, as 'a' and 'any' are general determiners.

When children start writing, they very often rely on the general determiners 'a' and 'an', or the specific determiner 'the'.  We should encourage children to increase the range of determiners they use so that they can vary their writing and communicate more clearly whether they are talking about something specific or general. 

As children are taught to read and write many determiners as part of their phonics teaching in Reception and Year 1 classes, it is an ideal opportunity or them to put these words into practice. However, they do not need to know the term 'determiner' until they are in Year 4.

Here are some determiners you can use with children to help them improve their use:

• a, an, the  (these are also called 'articles' but this is not a term children are required to learn)

• this, that, these, those

• some, any, every, another

• my, your, his, her, its, our, their

• several, few, many

• next, last

• first, seventh, tenth  (ordinal numbers, which indicate an order)

• six, twelve  (cardinal numbers, which indicate a quantity)

• which, whose, what (when these words are used to start questions, e.g. Which book is mine?)

The table below contains some determiners, some of which can only be used with a singular noun, some with a plural noun and some with both singular and plural.  

a	an	the	this	that	these	those
my	his	her	our	your	their	some
all	one	two	three	other	many	another

You can use the table to create cards to match up to pictures of singular and plural nouns.  Discussing what the words mean and whether they can be matched with the nouns in the pictures will help your child develop understanding around their use.  Here is a picture to start you off.

flowers	rose
fern	leaves

 

• the flowers
• some flowers
• many flowers
• these flowers
• my flowers
• a rose
• the rose
• one rose
• our rose

Pronouns used to replace nouns and noun phrases

Once children learn to chain a few sentences together to create a piece of writing, it is important for them to understand that they don’t have to repeat the same nouns and noun phrases in every sentence.  If you read the following examples, you can see how repetition interferes with the flow of reading, but replacing some of the nouns and noun phrases with pronouns makes the text easier for the reader to understand.

• Jack went to town and Jack took the cow to sell at the market.  When Jack got to town, Jack looked for a buyer but Jack could not find a buyer.  Jack was getting worried but then an old lady gave Jack some magic beans for the cow.  When Jack got home, Jack’s mother was very cross with Jack and Jack’s mother threw the beans out of the window.
• Jack went to town and he took the cow to sell at the market.  When he got to town, Jack looked for a buyer but he could not find one.  Jack was getting worried but then an old lady gave him some magic beans for the cow.  When he got home, Jack’s mother was very cross with him and she threw the beans out of the window.

When pronouns refer to a person, we call them personal pronouns.  Children need to understand that we use different personal pronouns in different sentence slots:  we need subject pronouns in the subject position of a sentence and object pronouns in the object slots.

Subject pronouns                    Object pronouns

(use in the subject position        (use in the object position

before the verb)                         after the verb)

I                                                 me

he                                              him

she                                            her

it                                                it

you                                            you

we                                             us

they                                           them

For example,

• He saw her.
• I saw them.
• She saw me.
• My family and I saw them. 

Children will sometimes confuse these pronouns, which is incorrect in Standard English and will be marked incorrectly in the grammar and punctuation test:

• Me and my family saw them.  (Incorrect as object pronoun me used in the subject position.)
• She saw my family and I.  (Incorrect as subject pronoun I used in the object position.)

These sorts of mistakes usually happen when ‘I’ or ‘me’ is used with another subject or object.  For example, children will rarely say ‘Me saw them.’ or ‘She saw I.’ and will recognise these structures as wrong since they sound strange.  However, when another subject or object is added, the strangeness is not as apparent.  Many adults also make these mistakes and incorrect use is often heard in the media, so it is difficult for children to distinguish correct Standard English.

There are other types of pronouns, but the subject and object pronouns are the first that will need to be taught.

Activity: Take Tibbles Out: using subject and object pronouns correctly

Update to Happy Families present and past progressive card game

Apologies to those of you who have downloaded the Happy Families game already.  I realised overnight that the singular past progressive cards needed to include 'I' as well as 'he/she/it'.  The cards are now revised. 

Also, the final column should contain the words 'past progressive', not 'present progressive'.  I was a little over-enthusiastic with my copy and paste buttons when putting these together and will endeavour to proof read a little more carefully in future!