What is a Sentence?

1. What is a Sentence? Mrs. Marino Houghton Mifflin, Reading, grade 3 Extra Support Handbook Pages 20-21

2. Bare Bones • Capital letter at the beginning • Subject: noun or subject pronoun • Predicate: verb • Punctuation No, but don’t race ahead of me! That’s all?

3. Let Me Explain • Noun: Names a person, place, thing, or idea • Person: common noun or proper noun • Common: girl, boy • Proper: Emma, Donald • Place: common noun or proper noun • Common: school • Proper: John L. Golden Elementary • Thing: common noun or proper noun • Common: dog • Proper: Tea Cup Chihuahua • Idea: common noun • friendship, love, courage, bravery

4. Here’s More • Pronoun: This word takes the place of a noun or nouns. They can be singular or plural. • Example: • The teacher greeted the students. • She greeted the students. • There are three types of pronouns: • Subject pronoun: This does the action. • I, you, he, she, they, we, it • Object pronoun: This receives the action. • me, you, him, her, us, them • Possessive Pronouns: These show ownership. • my, your, his, her, its, our, their

5. Let’s Have Some Action • Verb: Shows action or links ideas • There are 3 types of verbs: • Action verbs tell what the subject is doing. • watches, jumps, reading, listening (some examples) • Linking verbs link the subject to a word in the predicate part of the sentence. • am, are, be, been, is, was, were • Helping verbs come before the main verb, and help state an action or show time. • can, could, did, do, had, has, have, may, should, will, would

6. Let’s Practice • Thumbs up = a complete sentence • Thumbs down = not a sentence • Wendell and Floyd were in the office. • entered the office • lost a hat • Her feet were visible. • A moment later

7. Literature Focus • “The Lunch Room” (Reader’s Library) • Walk through the story with me • Illustrations • Predict the sequence of events, based on the illustrations • Use signal words: first, next, and at last

8. Sentence Expanders • Add details • Subject expanders • Predicate expanders • Prepositions • Conjunctions • Interjections

9. Sentence Expanders Subject expanders: • Adjectives describe a noun or pronoun. • Sensory adjectives tell what kind. • Number adjectives tell how many. • Articles are adjectives. • Describes one noun (positive form) • Compares two nouns (comparative form) • Compares three or more nouns (superlative form)

10. Adjectives Comparative: add “than” after the word, -er, or “more” before the word Superlative: add –est at the end of the word or “most” before the word Special Form: The words change spelling.

11. Adverbs • Adverbs describe a verb, or tells how an action is done. • Time: how often or when action is done • often, yesterday • Place: where something happens • nearby, outside • How: how something is done • brightly, silently • Why: why something is done • “to get some sleep”, “because he was hungry”

12. Prepositions • A preposition is a word that introduces a prepositional phrase.

13. I’m flying around the cat! The fly is over my head as I rest on the desk! I am near the desk. I am asleep under the desk. I’m hiding inside the drawer.

14. Two More • Conjunctions connect words or groups of words. • after, before, until, where, because, since, when, while • Coordinate Conjunctions: • and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet • “Or” connects two words. • “And” connects two phrases. • “But” connects two simple sentences. (Place a comma after the first sentence.) • Interjections are words or phrases used to express strong emotions or surprise. It is followed by an exclamation point or a comma. • Hey! Hold on! • Wow, look at him go!

15. Assessment • Teacher observation • Daily work • Daily writing • Informal discussions • Literature selections • Theme Skills tests • Daily language activities