Year 3/4 Grammar

Verbs Children learn verbs as ‘doing words’ e.g. sit, run, comb etc. They also need to remember the irregular ones, such as: to have, to do, to be. e.g .I am nine, I have a brother, I did my hair.

Nouns A noun is the name of a person, place or thing. People and places will have capital letters, whereas objects will not. e.g.: Ben went to London on the train to see the Queen.

Adverbs These are single words that tell us more about verb. They are normally –ly words. e.g. : He walked along the pavement quickly. (quickly describes how he walked)

Fronted Adverbials A fronted adverbial is when the adverb is at the start of the sentence. e.g: Quickly, he walked along the pavement. There is a comma after the adverbial.

Adverbial Phrases & Clauses An adverbial phrase does not contain a verb. e.g: Every evening, he would sit and tell his tale. e.g: A few months later, the same pirate went missing. An adverbial clause contains a verb. e.g: As daylight faded, the candle flickered out. e.g: When the world was younger, a tavern crouched in the harbour.

Determiners Come before nouns The articles the and a/an are the most common determiners.   any taxi  that question  those apples  this paper  some apple  whatever taxi  whichever taxi Many determiners express quantity:    all examples  both parents  many people  each person  every night  several computers  few excuses  enough water  no escape

The Present Perfect Tense The perfect tense requires the auxilliary (helping) verb: to have

The Present Perfect Tense Have/has + past participle makes the present perfect e.g. She has lost her bag. They have sailed across the ocean. The captain has demanded all hands on deck. I have been to Australia.

The Present Perfect Tense The present perfect tense is used to describe something that happened in the past, but the exact time it happened is not important.

The Present Perfect Tense I have done my homework = I finished my homework in the past. It is not important at what exact time, only that it is now done.

I have forgotten my bag. Exactly when in the past that I forgot is not important. The important thing is I don’t have it now.

I have done my homework yesterday. We do not use exact time expressions with the present perfect tense. We would say or write: I did my homework.