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Topic “Grammar”
Activities to develop understanding and use of the personal pronouns 'he' and 'she'
| Activity/strategy name and materials required | How to do the activity | Key principles for doing the activity and comments |
|---|---|---|
| Male/Female and he/she sorting activity - Male female sorting symbols and pictures - click here to print - You could also use photographs of family members, pictures from magazines/newspapers. |
| Once your child is getting confident with sorting the pictures into the correct piles, you can start to add the labels 'he' and 'she', e.g. 'we call a woman/girl a 'she', 'we call a man/boy a 'he''. This is called modelling - your child is not expected to use the words at this point but it is important for them to start to hear the new words that they are going to learn. |
| Which is it? | 1. Print and cut out the he/she pictures. Choose one each of an action, e.g. don't have both the boy and girl running. 2. Spread the pictures out in front of you. You may like to play a turn taking game alongside using the pictures. 3. Ask the child a question, e.g. "who is cooking?" 4. The child points to the correct picture and says, for example, "he is" or "he is cooking". 5. You can sort the pictures into a pile of he/she. | |
| Play with dolls A male doll A female doll A selection of different objects e.g. cup, ball. | ||
| Matching Pairs | ||
| Using he/she plus an action word | ||
| he/she lotto game |
Activities to develop the pronouns 'him' and 'her'.
| Activity/strategy name and materials required | How to do the activity | Key principles for doing the activity and comments |
|---|---|---|
| Play with dolls A male doll A female doll 2 identical sets of items, e.g. toy food, counters, any small items.
| 1. Explain to the child that you are going to play a game that will help them learn 'him and 'her. 2. Set out the dolls and the items. Explain that you call the male doll 'him' and the female doll, 'her'. 3. Give you child instructions - e.g. give the cup to him, give the plate to her. 4. After a few turns, ask your child to give you an instruction using the word 'him' or 'her'. | Before woring on him/her, make sure your child can understand and use he/she - click here for activities to develop these concepts. |
| Him/her sorting game |
think and talk about events in the past and future
| Activity/strategy name and materials required | How to do the activity | Key principles for doing the activity and comments |
|---|---|---|
| Which day? Sheet of paper with 3 boxes drawn on them for yesterday, today and tomorrow. A counter. Optional: sets of symbol cards or pictures showing a variety of activities - including activities the student may have done. You can create symbols cards using the Commtap Symboliser for PowerPoint. | 1. Talk about each day, one at a time. Get the student to draw or write things they have done or will do in each box. Use the picture symbols if the student is having difficulty coming up with things. 2. When you have finished, explain that there is going to be a quiz. Describe an activity and the student must say if they did it yesterday, did it today or will do it tomorrow. 3. Have them step the counter over onto the right day. | This works best when there are key things which are different about each day! |
| The Story of Fred Set of three pictures - one showing a picture of a child, one showing a picture (preferably of the same person!) at a similar age to the student and one a picture of an older person. These could be photographs or drawings. Choose three ages which are appropriate/relevant for the student.
Large 'thought clouds ' on A3 or A4 paper: Sticky tape Pens Picture symbol prompts if required. You can create symbol prompts using the Commtap Symboliser for PowerPoint. | ||
| Calendar Calendar Pens | This is an ongoing activity. You could take photos of the key events, and put them on the calendar. | |
| Daily Schedule/Picture Schedule Any activity or set of activities where the student might use a schedule or have a visual timetable. You can create a visual timetable/schedule using the Commtap Symboliser for PowerPoint. |
Activities to develop use the pronoun 'you' when talking
| Activity/strategy name and materials required | How to do the activity | Key principles for doing the activity and comments |
|---|---|---|
| Look at the hat | 1. Allow your child to choose a hat to wear. Point to your child and say 'You are wearing a hat'. Look in the mirror, point and say 'You are wearing a hat'. 2. Point to the symbol 'You' as you use the word 'You'. 3. Put a hat into your child's hand and encourage him/her to give the hat to you. Help the child to point at you and say 'Child's name says 'You are wearing a hat''. 4. Look in the mirror and help your child point and say again 'You are wearing a hat'. 5. Include other people in the game but keep using only the word 'you' to talk about what people are wearing. Point as you use the word 'you'. | |
| Drawing pictures - Set of familiar pictures which are easy to draw e.g. cat, dog, book etc. |
Activities to develop use the pronoun 'I' to refer to self
| Activity/strategy name and materials required | How to do the activity | Key principles for doing the activity and comments |
|---|---|---|
| Mystery bag of objects - Bag - Different objects | 1. Offer the bag of objects to the child to choose an item. 2. As the child pulls out an object, model the phrase the child needs to use e.g. 'I have got the ...'. 3. You take out an object. Say 'I have got the ...'. 4. You want the child to copy your phrase and use the word 'I'. You may need to tell the child 'Copy my words'. 5. Keep doing this activity until the child can use the standard phrase 'I have got the...'. Reward the child for success with a smile or a sticker. | You could say to the child 'this is a copying game!' Keep the pace up during this activity and keep the phrase you want the child to copy the same each time to make it easier for the child to remember and get it right and so get the reward. |
| Pretend to visit a shop | ||
| Copy the action! |
Activities to develop the use of irregular plurals
| Activity/strategy name and materials required | How to do the activity | Key principles for doing the activity and comments |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction | 1. Explain to your child that you are going to talk about plurals - this is where there it more than one item. 2. Explain that for lots of items, we add an 's' on the end of the word to indicate more than one, e.g. 'one cat, two cats'. 3. Explain that some words use a different ending. Look through the picture cards together and talk about hte different words.
| To work on regular plurals first - click here for activities (add link) |
| Matching Pairs | ||
| Lotto | To make this game harder, you could say a sentence with your target word in. |
predict infer and analyse from pictures and text
| Activity/strategy name and materials required | How to do the activity | Key principles for doing the activity and comments |
|---|---|---|
| Everyday situation with words and a picture A picture of an everyday event, or social setting e.g. crossing the road, or going to the cinema. A story to go with the picture (no more than 5 or 6 sentences). Or See the resource sheets in 'Language for Thinking' (LfT) by Parsons and Branagan (Published by Speechmark). If using this publication, use Module 3 and the level C questions. This programme has questions for a range of ability levels. | 1. Choose a scenario picture. 2. Show the children the picture and let them read the story. 3. Ask the child the questions verbally. 4. Focus on questions that require more working out and understanding of the context, e.g. 'What will happen if he...?' 'Why is it made of that?' 'If you were X, what would you say / do?' 'Why can't he?' (LfT level C questions). | Use some simpler questions to start with. (LfT level A and B if you are using the Language for Thinking book). If a child gives a short answer, prompt them to expand it. If the child finds these questions easy, move on to having them read the story without looking at the picture. Go back to using simpler questions and move up through question levels again. (LfT Module 3). |
identifies sentences in reading and uses full stops
| Activity/strategy name and materials required | How to do the activity | Key principles for doing the activity and comments |
|---|---|---|
| Recognising sentences in reading Write or type lines of text - perhaps from books the child has read. Some of these should be complete sentences. Some of them should be unfinished sentences so they don't make sense. Start all with a capital letter, but leave out the full stop from all of them. Cut out each line of text so each one is on a separate card or piece of paper. (You could keep an extra copy with the correct punctuation added as a model.) Examples: The boy is in bed At the weekend It is time to go My house is in a Easylearn produce prepared texts in a book called 'First Stop' | 1. Child / adult read aloud through a selection of lines of text. 2. Child identifies which are complete and make sense (i.e. which lines are full sentences) and which are not. 3. Child sorts the lines of text into two groups - ones that are complete sentences and ones that are not. 4. Adult models re-reading the lines and adding the punctuation - full stops only at the ends of the complete sentences. 5. If the child is ready - let them work on adding full stops at the ends of complete sentences. | The purpose of this activity is for the child to recognise that a sentence has to make sense (and that it isn't just the punctuation that shows it's a sentence). This could be done one to one, in a pair or in a small group e.g. four children. Child could check work from a model prepared earlier. This links to 'cut up' sentences in reading / writing - child reads the words and sequences them to form a sentence. |
| Identifying sentences and sentence boundaries in longer texts and adding full stops / capital letters Four slightly longer texts than in the "recognising sentences in reading" activity, e.g. of about 3-4 lines, which you have written out or typed without punctuation. Example: it was a hot day the children were making a sandcastle it was really big Easylearn produce prepared texts in a book called 'First Stop' | The purpose of this activity is for the child to recognise that a sentence has to make sense (and that it isn't just the punctuation that shows it's a sentence). This could be done one to one or in a pair -or small group e.g. four children. Punctuation Kung Fu (described in the book Could Do Better by Phil Beadle, www.philbeadle.com), where each punctuation mark is accompanied by a kung fu movement and a noise, could be introduced as part of this activity. This links to 'cut up' sentences in reading / writing activities - child reads the words and sequences them to form a sentence. |
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