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

Grammar queries: just

I was asked last week if ‘just’ was acting as a determiner in this sentence and was therefore part of the noun phrase:  But they were just ordinary puddles with nothing in them.

We use adverbials for many different reasons and we typically start off explaining their use to primary children as indicating ‘how’, ‘where’ or ‘when’, perhaps moving on to ‘why’ by upper KS2.  However, use of adverbials in English is far more complicated than that.  For example, we use them to provide viewpoint, focus on a part of a sentence and intensify/emphasize information.

In the sentence above, ‘just’ is acting as an adverbial which focuses the reader on what ‘they’ were: ordinary puddles.  Focusing adverbials can add information or limit information; in our sentence, ‘just’ is limiting what has been said.  ‘They’ and nothing else are ordinary puddles.

One flexible feature of adverbials is that they can often be placed in different positions within a sentence.  Invariably some positions ‘sound’ better than others; they flow more naturally because that is the position in which they usually occur.  Sometimes we alter the positions to create effect for the reader.  In our sentence, it is perhaps possible that we could say ‘But they just were ordinary puddles …’ although I have to say I prefer the first construction. 

Other focusing adverbs which act as limiters and could be used in this sentence are:

• merely
• only
• purely
• simply

Another feature of focusing adverbs is that they cannot be modified by another adverb, so we couldn’t have ‘very just’ or ‘very only’.

Of course, ‘just’ can be used in other ways as well and the key thing is to look at its role in each individual sentence.

I’ve just realised what you said. (Time adverbial – at this moment)

He had just arrived.  (Time adverbial – at that moment)

He was a just man.  (Adjective – describing the man)

Context is everything!

Something a little more practical about relative clauses

After my rather heavy session yesterday with Mr. Gwynne's relative clauses, I thought I'd follow it up with something a bit more useful.  If your reader has to negotiate such a convoluted path and so many commas to understand what you have written, you would be better to rewrite the sentence.  However, relative clauses can really add variation and effect to children's writing, so let's forget about introducing brothers and sisters and see how we can help children understand this type of clause. (It might also be worth remembering that, if the draft National Curriculum is adopted in its current form, relative clause and relative pronoun will be terminology for Year 5 children.) 

Children use these constructions already in their writing and we encourage use through Talk for Writing activities.  For example, when we learn a story in class so that children can imitate or innovate the structure and language, we highlight function words such as 'who' with actions to help the children remember to add them.  If you name a character and follow it with 'who', you have to go on and add more information about that character.  Try it out and see:

There once was a young boy.  (This would be a rather boring start to a story.)
There once was a young boy, who...  (Well, now we may get something a bit more interesting!  The comma here indicates that the relative clause is going to add some additional information for the reader - a non-restrictive relative clause for those of you who want to know.)

And I would start off with relative clauses that add additional information.  Children will need to understand that they are expanding information about the noun (expanding the noun phrase).  I would use my sentence toolkit here and model expanding my tape measure to show how the noun phrase is expanding.  They will already have experienced the expanding tape measure as they will have used it with me to expand the noun phrase by adding determiners, adverbs and adjectives before the main noun (premodification).

Provide a basic noun phrase and recap how we can add information before the main noun:

• the fox
• the red fox
• the wily, red fox

Challenge the children to add the word 'which' after the noun and expand the noun phrase.  Take suggestions and write one on the board.  Model using the comma screwdriver to demarcate the clause and question childen about whether this clause completes the sentence.  Does it make sense, or do we need to add something else.

•  the wily, red fox, which hadn't eaten for a week

 Through discussion, help children to understand that this noun phrase only forms part of their sentence and they need to go on to say what the fox is doing/feeling.  Again, ask for suggestions and model completing the sentence:

• The wily, red fox, which hadn't eaten for a week, slunk around the chicken house. 

Discuss how the commas now enclose the relative clause and can be used as handles to lift out the clause.  The sentence will still make sense because this clause just adds additional information and is subordinate to the main clause: The wily, red fox slunk around the chicken house.

You can also show how the whole structure of noun and relative clause is part of the noun phrase, because the whole can be substituted by a pronoun: It slunk around the chicken house.  That's a useful test of a noun phrase.

Once children have this knowledge, they can be challenged to use the relative pronouns in their independent writing.  They should use 'who' for people and 'which' for objects and places.  Peer discussion can identify what additional information is provided and whether this enhances the information or not.

Noun phrase expansion using the Sentence Toolkit

This activity is to help children understand how to develop a noun phrase and add more information for their reader.  The tools mentioned come from the Sentence Toolkit.

Use pictures which enable children to describe different people, objects or places with an element of choice about the description.  Many picture books will have illustrations that can be used for this purpose, so description can be linked to the unit you are teaching, e.g. ‘Tell me a Dragon’, by Jackie Morris.

Look at the picture and model describing something in it.  Start off by showing the children the page and telling them which person or noun you are going to describe, using just ‘the’ + main noun, eg the dragon.  Ask children to give you words that describe the picture.  After collection, explain that these are adjectives, which we use to paint in detail.   Model using the paintbrush.  Point out the tape measure from the toolkit display and explain that you can say more about the noun to add detail for the reader or to be more precise.  Model choosing adjectives to put before the main noun and, as you make your noun phrase larger, expand the tape measure.

Depending on what the children need to develop, you could use this activity to model the following elements:

• Decide on adjectives of colour, size, shape, texture, etc. and make choices about the order you are going to say these.
• Add adjectives which describe attributes, e.g. scaly, horned.
• Choose a determiner other than ‘the’ to provide variation, e.g. this, that, several, each, one, my.
• Choose adverbs to describe how much the adjective applies, e.g. extremely, very, quite, rather.
• Decide where you need to put commas in a list of adjectives.  You can use the comma screwdriver from the Sentence Toolkit for this.