Word Skills

Nouns name people, places and things

Verbs show actions.  Strong, specific, colorful verbs make our writing more interesting.  A thesaurus can help us to replace general, overused verbs in descriptive sentences.  (examples:  Instead of ate: gobbled, devoured, nibbled.  Instead of said: whispered, roared, sighed, yelled.  Instead of walked: strolled, paced, stomped, tiptoed)

Adjectives are words used to describe.  Our writing is more interesting when we use describing words.  When we are writing we want to be sure to paint pictures with words for our readers.  We do this by adding adjectives. Example:

The cat is eating.

The black cat is eating.

The big, black cat is eating.

The big, furry, black cat is eating.

Adverbs tell when (first, before, after, during, now, then, next) and how (quickly, softly, happily, sadly, quietly, swiftly) something happened.  Often adverbs end in -ly.

The big, furry, black cat is happily eating.

Sentences

Capitalization:  Students will use a capital letter for the first word in each sentence, proper nouns, and the pronoun "I."  Proper nouns are special names for people, places and things.

noun                             proper noun

girl                                Susan

teacher                         Mrs. Mizerak

street                            Hardenburg Lane

school                           Warnsdorfer

store                             Acme

holiday                          Mother's Day

Punctuation Marks

End Marks:  Students will use proper end marks at the ends of statements, commands, questions and exclamations. 

A statement is a telling sentence.  It ends with a period.

This is a bone.

A command tells someone to do something.  It ends with a period.

Ask me something about the bone.

A question is an asking sentence.  It ends with a question mark.

What kind of a bone is it?

An exclamation conveys strong feeling or excitement.  It ends with an exclamation mark.

That's a dinosaur bone!

Complete Sentences

 A complete sentence tells about someone or something and what happens.  A sentence must have a noun and a verb.  The noun is called the subject and the verb is called the predicate.

The dog barked.  (subject) The dog  (predicate) barked.

Now we make our sentence better by adding describing words for our noun. 

The small, scruffy, black dog barked.

Then we can make our sentence even better by adding an adverb. 

The small, scruffy, black dog barked angrily.

Finally, we can make our sentence even better by adding a detail. 

The small, scruffy, black dog barked angrily at the tricky gray cat that stole his bone.

 Narrowing the Topic

Students often choose too broad a topic to write about, making their writing general, containing few details.  Narowing the topic can help students to improve their writing.

"Animals" is a broad topic.  There are many kinds of animals.

A specific animal, such as "dogs" would be narrower and easier to write about.

"Dogs" is still a very broad topic.  We can narrow it to a particular breed of dog, such as "golden retriever."

We can narrow the topic even more.  Writing about "a certain golden retriever that you know"  really makes the topic more manageable. 

Good Spelling

We can use spelling patterns from words we know to spell new words.  (float, boat, coat, gloat, goat, throat)

We can add endings to base words to create new words.  (kick, kicks, kicking, kicked, kicker)

Our spelling shows that we are aware of possible vowel patterns: vowel-consonant-silent e (make, hive, joke), two vowel talkers (ee, oa, ay), two vowel whiners (oi, oy, ow)

Double the final consonant when the word has one short vowel followed by one consonant. (run, running, swim, swimming, stop, stopped)

Drop the silent e (make, making, skate, skated, joke, joker)

Change the y to i (pretty, prettiest, happy, happier, baby, babies)

Plurals:  add -es when the base word ends in s,z,ch,sh,x (boxes, dresses, lunches, brushes)

Possessive ('s shows ownership)  Oscar's bowl, Linda's bike

Homophones: words that sound the same but are spelled differently and mean different things (their, there, they're, to, too, two, write, right)

Contractions:  (that is = that's, do not = don't, I have = I've)

a or an:  use "an" before a word that begins with a vowel sound

(an umbrella, an apple)

Writing a Paragraph

Paragraphs should have a title.  This is different from the topic sentence.  It is written at the top of your paragraph on it's own line.

Paragraphs begin with a topic sentence.  This is a complete sentence that states what the paragraph will be about. 

Indent the first line of your paragraph only.  Continue to fill each writing line and begin each new line at the left margin of the paper.

Sentences should be complete with proper capitalization and punctuation.

Describing words, adverbs and strong verbs are used to make the writing interesting.

All sentences stay on the topic without repeating information.  At least 3 supporting details should be given.

Sentences begin in different ways and different types of sentences are used.

Details are clearly stated.  The reader can understand what you are saying.

The paragraph ends with a closing (feeling) sentence.

Good spelling is used.

Neat handwriting is used.