Cracking the Grammar Code Syntax Skill Pretests and Sample Skill Activities Mary Homelvig, M.A., CCC-SLP Kerilynne Rugg, M.A., CI, CT Cracking the Grammar Code Syntax Skill Pretests and Sample Skill Activities Mary Homelvig, M.A., CCC-SLP Kerilynne Rugg, M.A., CI, CT Supporting Success for Children with Hearing Loss Publications Minneapolis, MN USA Cracking the Grammar Code: Syntax Skill Pretests and Sample Skill Activities © 2017 Supporting Success for Children with Hearing Loss Publications All rights reserved, with the exception that the publisher grants limited reproduction permission to individual professionals who have purchased this manual to reproduce worksheets, assessments, charts, and handouts from this book and/or from the Supporting Success for Children with Hearing Loss website, as needed for use with students, their families, or professional colleagues involved with students on their caseload. Reproduction of any of these materials for large-scale distribution, such as providing at a conference or to local groups or regional teams, or for commercial use is prohibited. Otherwise, no part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in any forms or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or in any retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Design and Layout: Anita Jones Supporting Success for Children with Hearing Loss Publications 1775 Garland Lane Minneapolis, MN 55447 USA ISBN: 978-1-942162-21-6 Dedication • For your continued love and support: Josh, Coltrane, and Kohen – Kerilynne • To my parents, Tom and Louise Moody; my husband, Bob; and my daughter, Aly McMillan– Mary Acknowledgments • To Aly McMillan and Josh Rugg for all of your dedication and contributions to this endeavor • To the DHH staff and students at Del Oro High School for piloting this program A Message to the Reader Dear User, As teachers and support providers, all too often you must bring together materials from a wide variety of resources, with limited activities for mastering the grammar rules and conventions. Most supplemental materials deal with nouns, verbs, and subject-verb agreement as components of a whole study of grammar. These materials provide small amounts of activities; hardly enough to properly instruct students whose needs for repetition and highly focused instruction are more acute than the traditional student’s needs. For instance, in one publication widely used in the classroom, the resource book provides 15 pages of activities addressing nouns, verbs, and subject-verb agreement all together. Cracking the Grammar Code: A Comprehensive Teacher and Student Guide for Writing will supply you with the resources to move students toward mastery and independence in applying basic concepts for grammar and writing with a full year’s worth of daily activities addressing language rules. This guide will comprehensively teach nouns, such as common and proper nouns, singular and plural nouns, possessive nouns, and abstract, concrete, and collective nouns. Articles, conjunctions, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs and prepositional phrases will all be thoroughly addressed in incremental steps. The verbs section covers topics including action verbs, linking verbs, helping verbs, present participles, past participles, irregular verbs, verb tenses, infinitives, transitive and intransitive verbs, and gerunds. Then when learning about subject-verb agreement rules students will master finding the subject, rules for subject-verb agreement and writing grammatically correct sentences and paragraphs. These materials consist of paired activities for the whole class and independent applications. Where other grammar materials jump from concept to concept, rarely, if ever returning to reinforce previous concepts, we have paid special attention to scaffolding previous concepts while introducing new ones. In addition, certain sections spotlight the grammar rules to give students a concrete guide to understanding grammar. Each key concept is taught predictably, alternating between two kinds of activities: teacher-directed and student application. Each pair of activities gets progressively more challenging and builds on previous knowledge to add consistency and practice as students work their way through each lesson. Cracking the Grammar Code is targeted to special education teachers, including resource teachers, English Language Learner teachers, teachers of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and Special Day Class teachers, who work with students at the upper elementary, middle school, and high school levels. We hope you find Cracking the Grammar Code thorough and easy to use with your students. Sincerely, Mary Homelvig and Kerilynne Rugg Table of Contents Pretests/Answer Keys Content Pages Nouns Pretest 1–6 Pretest Answer Key 7–8 Articles Pretest 9 Pretest Answer Key 10 Conjunctions Pretest 11 PretestAnswer Key 12 Verbs Pretest 13–16 Pretest Answer Key 17–18 Pronouns Pretest 19–20 Pronouns Answer Key 21 Adjectives, Adverbs and Prepositional Phrases Pretest 22-23 Pretest Answer Key 24 Finding the Subject Pretest 25–28 Pretest Answer Key 29–30 Subject-Verb Agreement Pretest 31–35 Pretest Answer Key 36–38 Class Activities Content Pages NOUNS: Nouns #1 39–40 #2 41–42 #3 43–44 Common and Proper Nouns #4 45–46 #5 47–48 #6 49–50 #7 51–52 Plural Nouns Rule 4 #18 53–54 #19 55–56 #20 57–58 ARTICLES: Articles #1 59–60 #2 61–62 #3 63–65 VERBS: Verbs/Linking Verbs #1 66–67 #2 68–69 #3 70–71 #4 72–73 Linking Verbs vs Helping Verbs #12 74–75 #13 76–77 #14 78–79 #15 80–81 Plural Verbs #21 82–83 #22 84–85 Content Pages PRONOUNS: Objective Singular and Plural Pronouns #6 86–87 #7 88–89 #8 90–91 ADJECTIVES /ADVERBS Comparative and Superlative Adjectives and Adverbs #17 92–93 #18 94–95 #25 96–97 #26 98–99 SUBJECT-VERB: Finding the Subject #4 100–101 #5 102–103 #6 104–105 #7 106–107 Subject-Verb Agreement #36 108–109 #37 110–111 #38 112–113 #39 114–115 #40 116–117 Answer Key for Class Activities 119 About the Author 139 PRETEST NOUNS Nouns Directions: Underline the nouns. Label them person, place, thing, or abstract concept. 1. The manager talked, to the staff, about the directions. 2. Firefighters must have courage. 3. The parents bought new clothes during their vacation. 4. The cat ran up the tree and meowed loudly for help. 5. The young girl rode her bike, to the store, for some candy. Scoring: ____/26 = _____% If student scores less than 80%, teach activities #1-3. Common and Proper Nouns Directions: Classify each noun as a common noun or a proper noun. 6. state 7. Rachel 8. door 9. computer 10. Barack Obama Scoring: ____/5 = _____% If student scores less than 80%, teach activities #4-7. Plural Nouns Directions: Write the plural form for each singular noun. 11. television 12. porch 13. tax 1