by Donna | Apr 19, 2011
Sit and rise have I’s–and lie does too.
“Coz these are things that I, all by myself, can do.
Set, raise, and lay are words that you choose
When each one has an object after it to use.
I am going to take sit/set; rise/raise; and lie/lay one pair at a time over the next few days; however, I wanted to start the series (or at least this second post) with teacher tips.
I have watched kids with glossed over eyes as I have tried many techniques and order to teach these tricky pairs, and have had many difficulties “rise” up and confuse them (and me!):
- People lie; things get laid down—sort of works, but it’s not just people who lie—the sun lies on the horizon; the city lies asleep in the early morning hours; the animal lies in the middle of the road….you get the idea
- People lie; things get laid down—but it still didn’t help with the sit/set and rise/raise dilemma
- The past tense of lie (as in yesterday I lay down to take a nap…don’t I wish!) is the same as the current tense of lay (as in I am going to lay the book on the table)—poor kids!
- And so many more!
So here are a few tips that I would like to pass along to those trying to teach these rules:
- Consider a rhyme or mnemonic like the one above to reinforce the I’s in sit, rise, and lie—when we remind students that I do those things—and they have I’s in them, we are helping them remember that these do not have objects following them.
- Do NOT start with lie. It is by far the most confusing of the trio—and I try to do that one after rise and sit (with fewer exceptions, etc.) are established in students’ minds.
- DO start with sit. Set has the same tense for all—present; past; and past participle. Today I set the table; yesterday I set the table; before that I have set the table.
- If you are teaching from a Christian standpoint, Jesus and God are prime examples of rise/rose/has risen and raise/raised/has raised:
- Jesus will rise from the grave. God will raise Jesus.
- Jesus rose from the grave. God raised Jesus.
- Jesus has risen from the grave. God has raised Jesus.
- Suggested order: sit/set; rise/raise; and lie/lay.
Happy teaching—and learning! J
by Donna | Apr 13, 2011
We never had any takers for our poetry challenge! I put together a short stanza…but not real happy with it. I will share it below (and swallow my pride!). As my daughter likes to say, “Something is definitely wrong with that iambic pentameter!” LOL!
Still hoping for more poetry! Send it in! We’re going to go back to tips very soon, so stay tuned..and invite your friends to join us!
I have bold fonted the words I chose from the list.
Such benevolence we will never know again,
Such a life that was given to us by Him.
So forsaken, oh so cruel the treatment of our Lord,
On Calvary, oblivious to Self, gave eternity to the world.
Will we trust this Savior, who rose on Sunday morn?
Will we trust the gift bestowed—a chance to be reborn?
by Donna | Apr 6, 2011
April is National Poetry Month, a month-long celebration of poetry throughout the United States! This event was founded by the Academy of American Poets in 1996 in order to wide the attention of individuals and the media to poetry: the art of it, our poetic heritage, poetry books, living poets, and more.
According to the National Poetry Month site, the goals of National Poetry Month are to
§ Highlight the extraordinary legacy and ongoing achievement of American poets
§ Introduce more Americans to the pleasures of reading poetry
§ Bring poets and poetry to the public in immediate and innovative ways
§ Make poetry a more important part of the school curriculum
§ Increase the attention paid to poetry by national and local media
§ Encourage increased publication, distribution, and sales of poetry books
§ Increase public and private philanthropic support for poets and poetry
According to the aforementioned site, the Academy celebrates National Poetry Month in the following ways:
§ Posters: Each year the Academy creates and distributes nearly 200,000 official NPM posters, which are mailed for free to teachers, librarians, and booksellers nationwide.
§ Publicity: To ensure that poetry gains national attention in the media each April, the Academy mails several thousand press releases and media kits each year to editors and journalists across the country. As a result, thousands of articles about poetry appear in newspapers, magazines, and online media outlets. The Academy also acts as the official clearing house for news and information about National Poetry Month.
*Inspiration & Guidance: The Academy offers a plethora of practical resources for celebrating NPM, including tips for teaching poetry during April, creating a poetry book display in your bookstore or library, presenting a poetry reading or contest, and much more
Tomorrow—suggestions from the National Poetry Month for ways that individuals and teachers to celebrate this month.
In the meantime, I thought we could celebrate it here on Language Lady 365 by doing the following:
(1) Publishing poetry of the readers—you! I would love to publish some poems written by readers, so send them via INBOX, and I will put them up in the coming days;
(2) Have a poetry challenge—challenging readers to write a four line (or so) poem with words from a given word list. More on the latter later; in the meantime, send your poems in!
by Donna | Apr 4, 2011
A few more ideas for encouraging/helping your child with sentence writing, then we’re on to something new!
- If your child is hesitant to write because of penmanship difficulties, either teach him how to type (use a typing program for young kids) or write for him as he dictates to you. He needs to see that penmanship difficulties do not mean that he is unable to write. Writing is thinking. Penning is art.
- Try having him write sentences about things you are doing. For example, have him write a sentence each day in a journal about that day or every Saturday about the weekend.
- Or have specific things listed at the top of a journal for him or her that he/she writes about:
- Monday: Weekend
- Tuesday: Food
- Wednesday: Book
- Thursday: Animal
- Friday: Person
- Saturday: Movie
- Have him write a sentence under a picture, similar to captions. These pictures may be ones that he has drawn or colored or cartoons or pictures from a book.
- Make a list of nouns and a list of verbs. Have him write a sentence using one word from the noun list and one word from the verb list. For example:
NOUNS VERBS
Dog run
Boy jump
Girl catch
Radio blare
Cow ate
For more sentence writing help, along with help in other areas of language arts, for the second/third grade level (i.e. already reading well), check out the sample of the our books, “Character Quality Language Arts,” Level Pre A (
https://www.tfths.com/samples.php ). There is a full month that you may use with our child free of charge. Happy writing!
by Donna | Apr 4, 2011
Just a couple of most posts about sentence writing for our “Homework Help” feature this month—then back to more tips and tricks for all readers, writers, speakers, and thinkers! Below is a list of other sentence writing ideas for you and your student/child:
- If your child likes the feeling of creating through writing, but doesn’t think he can write sentences, you may want to try one of the following:
- Have him copy sentences that you write for him or sentences out of one of his favorite books.
- Write sentences for him with a light colored highlighter and have him write over the highlighter with his pencil.
- Write “fill in the blank sentences for him.” When I was in teacher’s college, these were called “cloze sentence” (for those who want to google to find out more). This is where you write sentences but leave blanks for him to fill in key words. This way you have started the sentences for him, but what happens in the sentence and to whom is still his creation. (There’s a site that lets you build these and print them for your kids/students at https://www.theteacherscorner.net/printable-worksheets/make-your-own/fill-in-the-blank/ .)
- If he can’t think of anything to write about in his sentences, ask him questions that he must answer in sentence form. “What is your favorite animal?” “What is your favorite color?” etc.
- If he is having trouble writing “real” sentences (i.e. write fragments or dependent clauses instead), have him say it aloud and ask him more questions. For example, if he says “Blue” (to the favorite color question), say “Blue what?” If he says “favorite color,” continue to coach him. “Try this…Blue is…can you make that into a complete sentences instead of just words?” (Coaching is a huge part of teaching writing!)
- If he likes to write stories, have him dictate sentences to you (or alternate giving sentences—he then you) that you pen for him.
- Finally, have him write a sentence a day to get used to sentence writing. We had journals for our kids that they copied verses and quotes in—one a day—to help them get a feeling for sentence writing.
Tomorrow—final homework help for sentences. Thanks for joining us!
by Donna | Mar 31, 2011
After a student is reading well (and sometimes even before if things are not quite taught in order), he will start learning to write. Remember this is not penmanship. Penmanship is penning words. Writing is putting words together to form sentences. Sentences are then put together to form paragraphs. And paragraphs are put together to design essays, reports, and stories.
A student can learn to write sentences either by writing them himself or by dictating to you and having you pen the sentences for him. Either way, here are some “sentence writing tips”:
- The CAVES acronym shows that a sentence must contain five parts: Capital; All makes sense; Verb; End mark; Subject. You can use this with your child as he writes sentences to evaluate if he truly has written sentences or just a group of words. (If he doesn’t fully understand the subject-verb part, ask him if his sentence has someone or something that it is about. And that someone or something doing or being something (verb). He doesn’t even have to know the terminology to see if the subject or verb is missing from a sentence.
- The other two “easily visible” part of CAVES—capital and end mark—can be spotted quickly by your student as you ask him for each one.
- The last one, All makes sense, is best discovered orally (both now and in writing for years to come). This is because what a person thinks he wrote (and reads silently) is not always what he truly wrote. Thus, if he reads something silently, he will often read in his head what he meant to write, not what he actually wrote. If he reads it aloud, he will “hear” it. (Incidentally, we use this “hear” your errors approach in our writing books for high schoolers as well—not just for individual sentence writing.)
- If he is learning to write sentences and feels at a loss as to what to write, point out the speaking-writing connection to him by dialoguing:
Student: I can’t think of anything to write.
Teacher/Parent: What did you do today?
Student: school
Teacher/Parent: Say it in a complete sentence with “I” as the subject.
Student: I went to school.
Write this down for him, showing him once again that the written word is simply the spoke word written down.
More homework help for early writing tomorrow. Happy learning!
