Teacher Guide to Learning The Rules of Grammar
Do you wonder why you need to understand basic grammar rules? It's simple. Every child has to go to school for at least twelve years. During these years you will have to write answers to questions, reports, papers, and letters. Writing all these things will be impossible if you don't understand the basic rules for grammar.
All writing projects begin with a sentence. Writing larger reports or papers means you have to have more sentences. So the best place to start in learning basic grammar rules is what makes up a sentence.
Nouns
The simple definition of a noun is that it is a person, place, or thing. It is usually easy to remember that people and places are nouns. It is the "thing" that gets tricky. One of my teachers added to this grammar rule by saying a noun is something that can be counted or measured.
Pennies can be counted, so can books, rocks, hugs, etc. They are nouns. But what about air? Air can't be counted, but it can be measured. Water can be measured. This is where it gets tricky... jealousy, love and hatred can be measured. Because these things can be measured, they must be nouns. The first basic grammar rule is that nouns can be a person, place, or thing that can be counted or measured.
Adjectives
Adjectives are used to describe nouns. Some examples would be: shiny penny, warm air, cold water, large rock, red book. Shiny, warm, cold, large, and red are all the adjectives that describe the nouns. Sometimes you will use several adjectives to describe one noun.
Pick out the adjectives in this sentence: He rode the shiny, red bike down the street. There are several nouns in this sentence. The nouns are he, bike, and street. Is there a word used to describe the noun he? No. Does any word describe street? No. Yet when you look at the bike, you will see that it is described as being shiny and red. Shiny and red are the adjectives. The second basic grammar rule is that adjectives are used to describe nouns.
Verbs
Basic grammar rules explain that verbs
are the action words. If you are going to do anything, you need a verb.
If you want to run, jump, sing, sleep, or skip through life, you need verbs
to put the action on paper. You can't exist without verbs, literally. The
verb "to be" is very important. In the sentence: I am hot. I is the noun,
hot is describing the noun so that would be the adjective, and am is a "state
of being," so it is the verb. The third basic grammar rule is that you can't
do anything without a verb.
Basic grammar rules will help you create sentences. Nouns, verbs and adjectives are a great place to start. These three grammar rules will be the first steps you need to understand and master before you can move on to the next set of grammar rules.