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...

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

Tell Me A Dragon: teaching sentence structures through a great text

Tell Me A Dragon, by Jackie Morris, is a beautiful book.  It has the most wonderful illustrations, which will both support and motivate children to write more descriptively, and the structure of the sentences on each page provide children with models for writing which they can imitate or innovate. 

How you use the text will depend on the year group you are teaching and the grammatical features you have identified for development with your pupils.   I've provided a few examples from the text for each grammatical element, together with the relevant Sentence Toolkit tools which you could use with these.  Once children have understood how to use the structure and had fun with writing their own examples, they could perhaps produce a class or group book, writing sentences to describe their own dragons.

Noun phrases which provide beautiful description, using both pre- and post-modification of the noun  (Sentence Toolkit: tape measure)

• the silver moon-path,  (premodification only)
• the secret music of the wind (postmodified with prepositional phrase)
• whisper-thin wings of rainbow-hues (wings are pre-modified with 'whisper-thin' and post-modified with 'of rainbow hues')

Adjectival phrases (Sentence Toolkit: large paint brush)

•  snaggle-toothed, fierce and brave
• jade-winged and amber-eyed with a tail as long as a river (the adjectival phrases is extended by adding a prepositional phrase introduced by 'with'.  Within this prepositional phrase, the noun phrase 'a tail' is also post-modified with a simile.  The children don't need to analyse the structure in a technical way, but the model is fantastic for imitating and innovating.  E.g. My dragon is steely-scaled and stony-eyed with spikes as hard as granite.)  

  Similes (Sentence Toolkit: medium size paintbrush)

• as big as a village
• as long as a river

Simple adverbial phrases of where and when, suitable as models for writers beginning to use adverbials (Sentence Toolkit: saw)

• across the sky
• in the waves
• all day
• from far away and long ago
• around my pillow
• into my dreams

Subordinate clauses.  There are two subordinate structures I would use this text for.  (Sentence Toolkit: spanners - the conjunction spanner and the -ed spanner - and also the comma screwdriver) 

If I were developing subordination of time (Year 2), the model  I would use would be:

• When she laughs, petals ride on her breath. 

 Introducing the use of 'when' to start the sentence, will lead to the children automatically creating subordinate structures.  Alongside this, you and the class should note how the comma has been used to separate the two parts (clauses, but you wouldn't be using that term in Year 2 necessarily) of the sentence.  Children could think of other things their dragon might do, e.g. When he snarls, When she flies, and go on to complete the sentence with a main clause.

If I were developing other ways of creating complex sentences, in order to vary sentence structure, I would use the  model below.  I would use this with Year 5 and 6 pupils who were already using conjunctions for subordinate clauses:

• Curled around my ear, my dragon sings sweet songs and tells me strange stories from far away and long ago.
• Curled around my pillow...

This structure uses a past participle followed by a prepositional phrase to introduce the subordinate clause.  Children could use this pattern to develop their own dragon sentences.  Where else could the dragon be curled?  Around my arm, neck, shoulder? What other verbs could be used here?  Children could brainstorm their own past participles: wrapped (around my arm), rested (on my shoulder), draped (over my shoulder), hidden (under my hat).  Have some fun with it and get children used to the structure.  Even if they don't know the terminology, they will be able to start sentences with the pattern and will, therefore, be varying their construction of complex sentences.

Punctuation (Sentence Toolkit: screwdrivers, hyphens)
The text provides good models of punctuation, in particular use of commas to mark phrases and clauses and hyphens to create compound constructions to modify/describe nouns.  For example: snaggle-toothed, jade-winged, amber-eyed, sea-dragon, ice-dragon.

To see other texts recommended on this blog, click here.  And for more Texts that Teach, check out this link.

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.

Prepositional List Poem

After I put up the last post (Prepositional Phrases, 7th May) I started thinking about ways to create prepositional phrases with children.  The prepositions indicating 'where' are the easiest to start with and I thought it would be fun to try a list poem about their journey to school, or another favourite destination that they know well.  The idea really is to help them understand that a prepositional phrase can be created by starting with a preposition and then adding a noun or noun phrase.  Once children know how to create 'where' prepositional phrases, they can develop their use in the adverbial positions in sentences, to give readers information about where the 'action' is taking place.

Preposition - Year 3 terminology in the proposed new curriculum

Provide an example of prepositions (this would be a useful addition to your literacy working walls) and discuss what they mean.  Elicit that they can be used to say where things are. 

Ask the children to make a list of the things they see on their journey and explain these are the nouns (or noun phrases if more than one word is used, e.g. the church).

Model putting a preposition with a noun/noun phrase and discuss how it informs the reader where you are while you are walking or driving.

Children can then experiment with creating their own prepositional phrases and writing each one on a strip of paper.  You could order these, with children holding their phrase, so that a poem is created physically around the classroom.  Children could re-order themselves to create different effects in their poem.

After this practical experience, children could develop their own poem, either listing phrases sequentially along their route to school, on a school trip, or creating an imaginary route.  The latter would give chance for their phrases to be ordered to create some rhythm or rhyme in their poem.

Here's my example of a sequential journey.  Not finely crafted, but it gives the idea!

My journey to work

Down the lane,

Across the bridge,

Along the road,

Into the village.

Through the lights,

Past the church,

At the roundabout,

Out of the village.

Up the hill,

Under branches of trees,

Over the top

on Woodbury Common.

Between farm shop and fields

Beyond pubs, parks and houses,

Exeter!

One more idea!  As the journey is sequential, it acts like a map and children could fairly easily learn this for performance.  Different ways of performing it could also give opportunity for communicating speed of the journey to listeners.