JUMPSTART! GRAMMAR This collection of simple to use, multi-sensory games and activities will jumpstart pupils’ understanding of grammar in action. If you are one of the thousands of teachers who feel insecure about how to teach grammar engagingly, and perhaps also lack confidence in your own grammatical knowledge, then Jumpstart! Grammar is the perfect book for you. Fun games will focus first on helping children to hear the difference various types of grammar can make followed by activities to help them understand what different effects you can create with grammar, rather than dwelling on arid naming of parts. Technical terms will only be introduced once the children have established what the various features can do, with a particular focus on those terms that really help children discuss what makes language coherent and effective.
By the time the children are asked to use the terminology, they will have a real grasp of what it’s good for. Jumpstart! Grammar will prepare children for any grammar tests on the horizon in an engaging way so that they come to love playing with words and spinning sentences to make ideas dance. And, of course, they will be able to name the parts if that is what is required. This indispensable, practical book celebrates the joys of language and coherent expression; of finding just the right words or phrases to express what you want to say.
Pie Corbett, educationalist and bestselling author, is well-known for his books on teaching creative writing, as well as many other educational books, schemes and anthologies. Pie writes widely in the educational press, provides training nationally and works as a poet and storyteller in schools. Pie has written over 200 books and has worked extensively in schools as teacher, headteacher and Ofsted inspector. Some of his bestselling titles include: Jumpstart! Literacy; Jumpstart! Storymaking; Jumpstart! Poetry; How to Teach Storywriting 4–7; and How to Teach Fiction Writing 8–12.
Julia Strong is a former English teacher and deputy headteacher. She later became deputy director of the National Literacy Trust and director of the National Reading Campaign. She specialises in literacy across the curriculum and now works with Pie Corbett developing Talk for Writing. Julia has provided training days for hundreds of secondary schools, and some all-age schools, as well as being asked by local authorities to run training courses for headteachers, school librarians and literacy advisers.
She has written a range of practical books on literacy across the curriculum as well as secondary school English text books including English Frameworking and Literacy Across The Curriculum: Making It Happen that have proved to be bestsellers. She also coauthored Talk for Writing Across The Curriculum (5-12) with Pie Corbett. Also available Jumpstart! Grammar Games and activities for ages 6–14 Pie Corbett and Julia Strong Jumpstart! Spanish and Italian Engaging activities for ages 7–12 Catherine Watts and Hilary Phillips Jumpstart! French and German Engaging activities for ages 7–12 Catherine Watts and Hilary Phillips Jumpstart! Drama Games and activities for ages 5–11 Teresa Cremin, Roger McDonald, Emma Goff and Louise Blakemore Jumpstart! Science Games and activities for ages 5–11 Rosemary Feasey Jumpstart! Storymaking Games and activities for ages 7–12 Pie Corbett Jumpstart! Poetry Games and activities for ages 7–12 Pie Corbett Jumpstart! Creativity Games and activities for ages 7–14 Steve Bowkett Jumpstart! ICT ICT activities and games for ages 7–14 John Taylor Jumpstart! Numeracy Maths activities and games for ages 5–14 John Taylor Jumpstart! Literacy Key Stage 2/3 literacy games Pie Corbett JUMPSTART! GRAMMAR GAMES AND ACTIVITIES FOR AGES 6–14 Pie Corbett and Julia Strong First published 2014 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2014 Pie Corbett and Julia Strong The right of Pie Corbett and Julia Strong to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Corbett, Pie. Jumpstart! grammar : games and activities for ages 6–14 / Pie Corbett and Julia Strong.
pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. English language--Grammar-- Study and teaching--Activity programs. English language--Composition and exercises--Study and teaching. Strong, Julia, 1948- II.C7182 2014 425--dc23 2013050068 ISBN: 978-0-415-83110-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-76941-7 (ebk) Contents Introduction 1 The things: nouns, adjectives, pronouns and determiners What are nouns? What are adjectives? What are noun phrases? What are pronouns? What are determiners? 2 The actions: verbs, adverbs, adverbials and prepositions What are verbs? How to help children understand tense What are adverbs? What are adverbials? What are prepositions? 3 The links: conjunctions and connectives What are conjunctions? What are connectives? How connectives help link non-fiction activities 4 Sentences: clauses, phrases and different types of sentences What is a sentence? What is a clause? What is a phrase? How different text types require different sentence structures Varying sentences to achieve different effects 5 Punctuation What is punctuation? Commas – understanding the pauses Separating off subordinate clauses if they begin the sentence Dropping in extra information Direct speech (inverted commas) Dashes, hyphens and ellipses Understanding apostrophes When to use colons and semi-colons 6 Cohesion: including subject and object, formal and informal, active and passive What is cohesion? How pronouns can affect coherence Why understanding subject and object matters Embedding understanding of cohesion Grammar glossary and index to grammar games Please email AcademiceBooksSupport@informa.com with proof of purchase to obtain access to the poster for this eBook.
Introduction In an article in The Times about grammar, Ted Hughes stated that ‘conscious manipulation of syntax deepens engagement and releases invention’. At the time, I had been teaching for a few years and had already found that playing sentence and word games could be an effective way of developing both written style and creativity. We played the games both orally and by writing. For instance, as a quick start to a lesson I would put on the board a list of dull sentences for the children to improve.
Another game that we often played was ‘make a sentence’. I wrote a word and they had to invent a sentence. What I noticed with this game was that starting from one word tended to produce rather dull sentences. However, if I wrote three words (eg donkey – jelly – because), the children produced much more inventive sentences.
I realised that constraints actually helped the children to become creative. I also began thinking about how making up a sentence orally made writing easier, especially for anyone who struggled. Often we composed as a class and I used key ‘prompt’ words to help us develop the sentence. For instance, say we started with the word dog.
We might think of something like, I saw a dog. We then used the prompt words and added in extra ideas: Prompt word Sentence change Where? I saw a dog underneath the table. When? I saw a dog late last night. Which one? I saw the black, overweight dog.
What? I saw a dog running down the lane. The more we played around with sentences, the more the children’s writing developed. My key games were – make a sentence, improve a boring sentence, sentence doctor (spotting mistakes) and joining sentences. One effect of the games was that the children began to write more quickly, more interestingly and to vary their sentences.
What I didn’t realise at the time was that a mix of ‘hear it’, ‘say it’ and ‘write it’ was helping the children internalise the patterns so that they could then innovate. As the years ran by, I built up a bank of different playful sentence and word games. I learned two key principles. The games worked best where they were related to: a.
the text type I was teaching; b. the patterns that children needed to make progress. In this way, I began to develop the simple notion that grammar teaching worked most effectively where it was directly related to using grammar as a part of a child’s growing repertoire as a writer. We could look at good examples of high quality writing and discuss how the words were chosen or sentences varied to create effects.
We could play around with sentences and word combinations before trying to create the same sort of effects ourselves. This became a form of ‘grammar in action’ or ‘syntactical gymnastics’. Linked to this idea, I also developed the notion of playing a few quick-fire games at the start of my English lessons in order to tune the children into thinking creatively. The games were an attempt to help children: think swiftly; generate words and ideas; exercise and strengthen their imagination.
All of us have learned the grammar that we use from the constant language interactions around us – from our close relatives, school friends and adults whose talk we hear. Much of this can be strongly influenced if children are read to and read themselves. This learning occurs quite naturally and implicitly. However, the explicit, active teaching of grammar in relation to being a writer, speaker and interested reader can be a powerful part of developing an increasing control over language.
Many schools, over the last ten years through the influence of Talk for Writing, have discovered that the use of actions to support the use of connectives or other language features can be very powerful. This is linked to the simple notion that children need to hear how sentences are spoken, speak sentences aloud, and look at them written down before attempting to write them for themselves. It is impossible to write down different syntactical patterns unless you can say them. The games therefore often call for children to say sentences, read them and manipulate them before writing them.
Whilst dictation may seem somewhat old fashioned, it can be used to reinforce sentence patterns as well as helping children think about punctuation. Whilst there is no evidence that formal, isolated teaching of grammar raises standards in reading and writing, there is some evidence to suggest that teaching it in context can be useful: A randomised controlled study was conducted in [the] UK and aimed to explore the effect of contextualised grammar teaching on pupils’ writing development. By contextualised grammar teaching the researchers referred to: (i) introducing grammatical constructions and terminology at a point which is relevant to the focus of learning; (ii) the emphasis is on effects and constructing meanings, not on the feature or terminology itself; (iii) the learning objective is to open up a ‘repertoire of possibilities’, not to teach about correct ways of writing. Findings from the study were promising, showing a significant positive effect for pupils in the intervention group, taught in lessons using the above principles.
They scored higher in the writing tests compared with pupils in the comparison group.1 … The evidence on sentence combining has found it to be an effective means of improving the syntactic maturity of students in written English between the ages of 5 and 16.2 ‘What is the research evidence on writing?’ Education Standards Research Team Department of Education, November 2012 The key conditions for such teaching would be: a. Teach grammatical constructions when they are needed for the text type or to make progress in writing.