Tips for Using Word Cards in Reading Instruction

1) Don’t use word cards with words the student has never encountered. Word cards are for practicing words used in instruction, not for long lists of words never encountered before.

2) Create word cards with words from a reader or book that your student is working through with you right now. Reading words in context (with pictures, sentence rhythm, etc.) is easier than isolated words. I like to be sure my student knows the words out of context. You can test to see if the word needs added to your word card stack by writing the word on the board. If there is instant recognition, then it probably doesn’t need to go on a card. If there is guessing or cues needed, then it could go in the word card stack.

CLICK TO WATCH!

3) Once many words are added to your stack of cards, divide them into difficulty level so that the student has a pretty successful pack; a needs some help pack; etc. And don’t do all of them at once—this will be too many word cards at once and can get discouraging.

4) Add words from one family all to the same stack. For example, all at words in one stack together (as opposed to dividing into different stacks/collections). This gives the student a chance to practice the same family at once—and you have the one family all together to use as needed for further instruction.

5) Add sight words from the books you are reading. Do not add random sight words or too many at one time. We call these Remember Words because she has to remember them—but I still point out any phonetic components to them as we work through them. Give all the tricks, cues, and tools that you can.

6) I like to do the cards after she reads a book or two to me. (We are still in Bob Books for this student, so the books are short.) This way she has had success in context before using isolated words.

7) Develop a protocol for guessing words. In the video, I use my “punishment time” approach—which is a little joke that we have. When she guesses a word that does not at least begin with the first letter of the word on the card, I say, “Punishment time…what is this letter?” She has to say the letter then I say, “What sound does it make?” And she has to say the sound. BOTH things. This makes her not want to randomly guess the words because it annoys her to have to say the letter then its sound. It is a quick way to break a student from guessing the word—the student at least should guess a word that starts with that sound!  🙂 It’s not real punishment—just our joke. But if the word punishment bothers you (or your student), you could call it “First Letter Rule” or “No Guess Rule” or something like that. Guessing is fine, but if the student isn’t at least looking at the first letter in guessing, it can become a really bad habit.

Hope these tips help! What else can I help you with in your language arts, reading, writing, grammar, spelling, speech, or word analysis teaching?

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The history of the holiday known as Mother’s Day is an interesting one. It was founded by a single lady who wanted to honor her mother. Anna Jarvis arranged two ceremonies in 1908 to honor mothers and initiate the holiday. 

Soon thereafter, the holiday was catching on and Mother’s Day services were held in 45 states, as well as Canada and Mexico. For four years, Jarvis continued to advocate for a national holiday to honor mothers until she founded her own association in which white carnations were the icon and the terms “second Sunday in May” and “Mother’s Day” were branded. 

President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation in 1914 calling for the observance of the holiday (and other countries followed suit). Once the holiday became official, however, Mrs. Jarvis was unhappy with all of the hoopla. Evidently, she had planned for it to be a simple day in which a mother would receive a single white carnation and a handwritten letter. The gifts, parades, restaurant meals, parties, large bouquets etc. Jarvis actually wrote letters of protests and even tried to sue those celebrating the holiday in a manner in which she disagreed–stating that she had made the holiday herself. 

What does this history lesson have to do with English? Well, it turns out, in addition to feeling strongly about how the day was to be celebrated, Jarvis also felt strongly about the punctuation of the name of the holiday. She stated that it should be Mother’s Day–one mother possessing one day. It should be a day to honor one mother at a time, not a mass holiday, as in Mothers’ Day (in which the day belongs to many mothers). 

Nowadays, of course, we see the holiday punctuated both ways, though more often than not, it is the way Jarvis intended it to be–however, I dare say that the one carnation and hand-written letter policy are not still followed, judging by the crowds in restaurants today!

1. Mother’s Day—one mother–we write the word mother, and seeing that it doesn’t end in an s, we place the apostrophe then s Mother’s

2. Mothers’ Day–many mothers–we write the word mothers, and seeing that it does end in an s, we place the apostrophe on the outside of the s+

+Note that some handbooks say in this instance, we should still use an apostrophe s: Mothers’s Day, though rarely. Others say that if the addition of the possessive makes another sibilant, then use s’s. In our programs we teach the following:

1. Write the word you want to show possession to without considering the possessive part: Donna (or McDonalds)

2. Ask yourself if it ends in an s. If it doesn’t, add apostrophe s (Donna’s desk). If the word does end in an s already, just place an apostrophe on the outside (McDonalds’ fries).

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Merry Christmas from Language Lady and Character Ink Press! It is the time of good cheer, festivities, magical moments with children, celebrating the Nativity–AND grammar errors galore! Usage errors are to be expected since many of the things we are writing this time of year are things we only write once a year. It’s hard to remember grammar and usage protocols that we use daily, much less ones that we only use yearly. I hope this post will clear many of your Christmas grammar issues up!

(Want to learn more grammar and usage from Language Lady? Check out these links:

• My new Tricky Tricks to Help It Stick Page
• All of our amazing Punctuation Puzzles
• The Write Right Quick Kit
• Preposition Practice Pack
• Think Fast Grammar Quiz)

This time of year we see a plethora of spelling, capitalization, grammar, and usage errors–on signs, catalogs, greeting cards, and more:

1. merry Christmas on a greeting card (which technically isn’t wrong, but just doesn’t look right either!)

2. “This line is for eight items or less”–even though it should be “eight items or fewer”

3. Xmas–even though the Associated Press itself says to never use this abbreviation!

4. Seasons’ Greetings (which indicates that you are offering someone greetings for more than one season–the plural noun seasons)

5. Happy capitalization guy or girl–Christmas Tree, Christmas Decorations, Christmas Ham, etc.

Many holiday greetings and terms are subjective (shocking, huh?); however, here is a list to help you see the most common ways that greetings and holiday words are expressed this time of year:

1. You can write any of the following:

a. Seasons Greetings (no possession shown at all–more of a noun describing another noun)

b. seasons greetings (same as a., but no capitalization–not recommended for greeting cards and headers)

c. Season’s Greetings (the most common way, showing that the season {one season} possesses the greeting; note the capping here)

d. season’s greetings (like c but not capped)

2. Of course, people also write Merry Christmas in different combinations (with and without the M capitalized; however, Christmas should always be capitalized because it is a proper noun by itself:

a. merry Christmas

b. Merry Christmas

3. To cap or not to cap greetings? This is a stylistic preference, but if it is in a header or greeting card, you definitely want to capitalize:

a. Season’s Greetings or season’s greetings

b. Merry Christmas or merry Christmas

c. Happy Holidays or happy holidays

d. Happy New Year or happy New Year

e. Happy Christmas or happy Christmas

f. Happy Christmastime (all one word) or happy Christmastime (again, all one word)

4. Words that are already proper nouns should remain proper nouns in every context and should retain their capitalization:

a. Santa Claus

b. Poinsettia–This is traditionally capitalized because the flower is named after a botanist and physician who was also the first US Ambassador to Mexico, Joel Roberts Poinsett. In 1828, he introduced the plant to the country.

c. The actual holidays

i. Christmas or Christmas Day
ii. Christmas Eve
iii. New Year’s Eve (one year–singular YEAR…..hmm….”that doesn’t end in an s, so I need to put apostrophe s”)
iv. New Year’s Day

d. North Pole (Remember–you capitalize directions when they are part of a proper noun already–but not when giving directions. No “Turn West at the corner”!)

e. Jesus, Jesus Christ, Messiah–most Christian publications capitalize names for or references to God and Jesus

f. All locations associated with Christ’s birth and life as they are proper nouns already–Bethlehem, Nazareth, etc., and, of course, King Herod, Joseph, and Mary (but not shepherds or wise men)

g. When describing decorations, only capitalize the original proper noun:

i. Christmas tree
ii. Christmas wreath
iii. New Year’s Day dinner
iv. Christmas Eve party

h. Nativity is capitalized when it stands alone or when it is combined with non-proper noun elements

i. Nativity scene
ii. Nativity pieces
iii. Nativity story

i. Advent is capitalized in all contexts

Merry Christmas from the Language Lady!

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It has been said that when a banker or a counterfeit money “agent” learns about counterfeit money, he or she begins by learning what the real thing looks like.

I use this same approach to teach about sentences, clauses, and phrases in my language arts and writing books (Character Quality Language Arts and Meaningful Composition): teach the students what a real sentence looks like—and then teach what are not real sentences.

I teach what a sentence contains using a simple acronym: CAVES

Once a student learns what a real sentence is and can spot real sentences (and “non-sentences”), the possibilities for writing, sentence structure understanding, advanced sentence combining technique use, and more are endless!

Work on CAVES first—then your student will be able to do any and all of the following:

1. Tell the difference between a real sentence and a non sentence
2. Fix comma splices (since it will be obvious that this is a real sentence and that one is too)
3. Match subjects with their verbs in tense and number easily
4. Write with sentence openers clearly and in sophisticated manners
5. Combine sentences for all kinds of conciseness techniques and fancy shmancy writing

CAVES—it is what a sentence contains!
If you write a sentence and you are unsure of whether it is a “real” sentence, use CAVES.

When a sentence is not a “real” sentence, the culprit is usually the A one—All makes sense. And that “A” one will take us into sentences vs. phrases and clauses…on another day. Happy writing!

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An Introduction to Readability Levels

I began homeschooling over thirty years ago when Ray and I taught my younger sister (who was in eighth grade at the time) in our home. During my first several years of homeschooling, I used early readers when my children were first learning to read, but I did not care for “readers” for older children. I always felt that abridged or excerpted stories were inferior—and that children should read whole books.

This worked wonderfully for my first two (the ones who learned to read at age eight and nine). They didn’t like abridgements and excerpts very much anyway—and could easily read a couple of chapter books a week from ages ten and up. (I should note that they are both real literature buffs as adults, and our son teaches literary analysis of many novels to homeschooled students every semester. All of that reading really paid off!)

Then along came our third child, who begged for everything that I did not think was “best” for learning—workbooks (the more, the merrier, in her opinion); readers with excerpts and short stories; tons of what I had thought were useless pages of worksheets and coloring pages; and more. She was a different type of learner than Joshua and Kayla had been—and desired different learning tools.

So I began my hunt for “older” readers—readers for children beyond the phonetically-controlled ones that I had utilized to teach reading. I found many that I liked—and actually used some of them to read aloud to the kids since we found the stories and excerpts interesting and fun. They even caused my kids to go on and read entire books for themselves that they might have otherwise not known about or read (after reading an excerpted portion in their readers).

So…the moral of this story? Every child is different. Each child has his own learning style, likes, dislikes, etc. And we need to cater to those as much as possible in their learning. In order to choose reading materials for your children, a basic knowledge of readability levels will be a great help. I will detail readability levels and determinations in this month’s newsletter (March) and next month’s. 

When a child is in school, he is likely in a “reading group,” that is a group of children from his class in which all of the students read at about the same reading level. The child’s teacher chooses readers/stories for each group of children based on that group’s (the children in that group’s) reading level.

To practice with your child at home, you will want to do the same thing—but in a one on one, rather than small group, situation. How do you know what level is appropriate for your child?

I will enumerate some tips for choosing books at your child’s reading level, primarily for word-calling purposes. First, though, a small peek at readability levels will help you in determining your child’s reading level.

Readability is based on many factors. Many readability scales use one of a few simple formulae in which the number of words in a passage or story is divided by the number of words—and a readability level is derived based on the number of words each sentence contains (on an average). Other formulae use the number of syllables, considering that a sentence that contains twenty “one-syllable” words is certainly easier to word call than a sentence that contains twenty “three-syllable” words.

In both of those cases, the readability level is based on word calling, which is an accurate portrayal of early readers since children do not focus much on comprehension at that level of reading. (And if a class does focus on comprehension, it is usually just literal comprehension—what happened, who the characters were, etc.)

As students progress in their reading, we want them to not only be able to sound out words in a passage or story, but we want them to derive meaning from those words. Formulae for readability of a text based on comprehension is much more difficult to assess (though definitely counting number of words with longer syllables demonstrates a higher comprehension level than just merely counting the number of words).

So many things come into play when considering readability of, say, a chapter book of 150 pages. A book might be short but extremely difficult to comprehend due to the vocabulary used (which some formulae do not consider). Likewise, a book can be very long but have extremely immature vocabulary and not be difficult to comprehend at all.

In our language arts and composition books, we give students passages to write from at least half of the time for factual writing in the early grades, lessening as students learn to find appropriate sources themselves, etc. In choosing these passages to write from, comprehension is extremely important. In order to write from source material, a much higher level of comprehension must be realized than merely that of sounding out the words. In choosing passages for students to read, take notes from, and write from, we consider readability in terms of word calling first, then we consider sentence structure. Sentence structure includes the length of the sentence, the type of sentence (i.e. what we learned as compound, compound-complex, etc.), the type of and length of sentence openers a sentence contains (prepositional phrase openers, adverb openers, etc.), and finally, the vocabulary of the passage.

How does this apply to your reading with your student? Consider the list of ascending skills below concerning readability and readers:

Readability and Readers

1. In the early grades, you will be concerned with readability in terms of decoding, phonics, sight words, etc. That is, can your student read the words?

2. If your child already reads well in terms of decoding (sounding out words), and can “pick up anything and ‘read’ it,” you will want to focus on content—comprehending what he reads, discussing it, etc.

3. As students progress in reading, homeschooling moms and teachers in school often forsake the practice of reading aloud with children, noting that the child can word call anything, so there is no need to check for word calling skills/application of phonics. However, we advocate reading aloud with your child for some years, at least a couple of times a week. No, you will not be checking for word calling anymore (though my older boys will still say something like, “How do you pronounce this word—m-y-r-i-a-d?” when they are reading something to themselves), but reading involves word calling AND comprehension. A child who can “read anything” but not comprehend it is like a child reading “There’s a Wocket in My Pocket.” To say that a child in fourth grade can read at a ninth grade level because he can decode all of the words in a passage that is rated at a ninth grade readability level is like saying he can read the “Wocket” tale by Dr. Seuss. He might be able to word call it, but is he “reading” if he cannot comprehend what he reads?

4. Oral reading together with Mom or Dad at upper elementary grades is for comprehension—you will not necessarily be checking on the application of his decoding skills, but you will be checking on his comprehension, vocabulary recognition, etc. You will hopefully be guiding him through his reading, discussing it, answering questions about vocabulary words (i.e. words he can easily sound out but does not know the meaning of), etc.

5. If your child is beyond the beginning phonics instruction, you may not need books that are “graded” in terms of readability. Perhaps he already enjoys reading a certain picture book series or early junior fiction series. These can then become his “readers” to read with you.

6. Consider the differences in “readability” in the materials he reads with you vs the materials he reads to himself:

 
a. Be sure the material he reads aloud with you is somewhat challenging (i.e. he needs some help with words here and there but the books do not leave him in tears).

 
b. Be sure that what he is reading to himself is not so difficult that he needs cueing or instruction as he reads it.
 

 
c. Keep in mind that there are other things that affect readability besides syllable count, numbers of pages, sentence structure, and vocabulary. Interest is a strong factor in determining readability. (That is why I recommended the Saxon Bold Intervention+ for older students who need remedial reading on our Positive Parenting blog.The materials that they read from are high interest for older students—not childish or primary stories.) This is the reason that children who would not read their science or history book in fifth grade are picking up huge books of Harry Potter and these vampire books (not sure of their titles). Whether we like them or not, many children out there are reading these tomes simply because they are interested in them—despite the fact that those kids are not “at that reading level” and would never have picked up a book over two hundred pages prior to these books being released. (If you have an older student who is working on remedial reading, ask your librarian specifically for high interest/low readability materials for older students. Some of the adult literacy materials are extremely high interest with lower readability levels, as well.)

Other reading links:

Phonics Program Roundup for Reading Instruction

Using Word Cards for Reading Instruction

Reading Round Up: Tips for Teaching Your Child How to Read

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I have a lot of material at the blog about reading aloud to your kids—unit studies, morning read aloud, Bible time, story time, family read aloud, and more. We did them all…nearly every day for twenty-five years….and I wouldn’t trade those hours for anything!

But there are logistics…especially if you are trying to do this with a large family…multiple ages and interests, etc.

Those are some of the things that I tackled in my latest Facebook Live video about Read Aloud Time!

Check it out…..and check out the links below for some fun readers and a darling chapter book!

Click on the pictures below to see my Sound it Out, and Read a Chapter beginning reader books!

PIN IT FOR LATER!

Sound It Out, Baloo!

PIN IT FOR LATER!

Read a Chapter, Mowgli!

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1. They use my Directed Writing Approach!

In my Directed Writing Approach, every detail of every project is laid out for your student. None of my writing projects are “writing ideas” or “writing prompts.” Every writing assignment contains step-by-step instructions with much hand-holding along the way. The student is “directed” in how to write and what to write at all times—from brainstorming to research to outlining to rough draft and finally to revising.

My Directed Writing Approach takes the best methods I have discovered in order to teach each type of writing—color-coded research for research-based projects, “Topic of Paragraph” commitment for teaching paragraph breaks, The Three P’s of Persuasion for persuasive writing, the “section-paragraph-sentence” method for longer papers, story writing mapping, Paragraph House for young writers, 1-3-1 essay outlines, my Checklist Challenge for revising, and much more. Each Directed Writing Approach “method” is tried and true after fifteen years of my writing one hundred books and over fifty thousand pages!

Click on the picture above to view free samples of these books!

2. They contain a combination of projects—those with “given material” to write from and those that are completely original (in which student finds material on his own to use as his source).

Students are taught a wide variety of outlining methods in all of my books—Key Word Outlines From Given Material, Directed Brainstorming, Persuasive Mapping, The Paragraph House Outline, Split Paper Technique, Sentence-by-Sentence (S-by-S) Outlining from original sources, Q and A Outlines, Five W’s outlines, Scene Outlines for Story Writing, Formal Outlines for research, and much more.

I teach most writing types/projects by giving the student source material to take notes from first—then having the student branch out and write that same type of writing finding his own source. It is this combination of “given material” first followed by student-found material that gives the student confidence to write that type of paper or story. This method keeps the student from becoming too dependent upon given source material while at the same time helping him learn to find source material (or create his own!) after using given passages first. It is a win-win method.

Click on the picture above to view free samples of these books!

3. The skills that are needed for each writing project are taught within that writing project.

To ask a student to write a paper using three sources and two quotations without teaching the student the skills to complete those steps is cruel! When a project is being taught in my books, the student is also taught whatever skills are needed to complete the project.

 
For example, if the student is writing a story about an animal escaping, he will be taught words and vocabulary that describe various sizes and types of animals as well as how to use onomatopoeia to describe animal sounds. If a student is told to write a persuasive paper, he will be taught the elements of persuasive writing first. If he is writing a research report in which quotes are to be cited, he will be instructed first in how to use quotations (in an earlier lesson) then in how to cite them for that particular paper. These many “how to” lessons give students the tools to write whatever they are assigned easily and with confidence.

Click on the picture above to view free samples of these books!

4. Books are tested with over one hundred students each semester!

My books are not written by grammarians behind closed doors or even by experts who seldom work in small groups with students. (While my undergraduate degree in elementary education and my master’s work in reading specialist do help me occasionally, it is homeschooling for thirty-two years and testing my books every year {and writing and rewriting!} that give me my writing credentials.)

 
Character Ink books are written by teachers who write meaningful lessons then take them out and test drive them for two to five years with over a hundred students each semester. (My new 10 II: Four Research Reports has been tested for six years now—and took over a hundred hours to write and perfect the MLA/quotation citation methods lessons alone!)

 
Every year Character Ink has local cottage classes for homeschooled students in which small groups of students (six to ten per class) take either our complete language arts (Character Quality Language Arts) or our composition-only (Meaningful Composition) classes. As we test our books, we make notes in the margins, discuss them with our students (why was this one so hard for you when the last one was easier?), talk among the teachers, then go back and fix the books, tweak the lessons, and even drop lessons that are too confusing or uninteresting to students. You can’t possibly know if a lesson or project is a good one until you have sat across the table from eight junior high boys to watch their expressions (and/or glossed over looks in their eyes!). This is how we know our programs work!

Click on the picture above to view free samples of these books!

5. Student writing samples are provided for all original writing projects and portions of samples are provided for smaller assignments.

Our books have a little extra something that is seldom found in textbooks and certainly never found at the level of ours—student samples! Each of the original projects have a full-length student sample of that project. As a matter of fact, we use the student samples in our books to teach from—starting with Thesis Statements, Thesis Statements “Reloaded,” and other LINK sentences on to paragraph breaks, proper quotation use, scene development in stories, and much more.

 
Students understand the writing project so much better when there are models for them to look at and when they see what the expectations are for the project. Parents love our student samples because it helps them measure their student’s skills in following the instructions for each project (and gives the parent confidence to know if her student is completing the assignment correctly).

 
Our student writing samples are provided in all types of projects—expository essays, biographical reports, research reports, short stories, twice-told tales, persuasive essays, and more. Your student will know from the beginning what each project involves as the book takes him through a sample to see what great project he will be doing! Student samples are invaluable!

Need further evidence? Go to our blog and print off two weeks of free Meaningful Composition samples at each level (or several pages of the downloadable books). Try before you buy! You will be amazed at how quickly your students become accomplished writers—and how pain-free teaching writing really can be! 🙂

*Write On downloadable and print books (Write On, Mowli; Write On, Peter Pan; Write On, Beauty and Beast); Meaningful Composition; Character Quality Language Arts; and other downloadable e-books.

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“Prepositions show position!”

That is where I start. The very basics. Catchy. Easy to recite. Simple to remember.

From there, we branch out to the explanation: Prepositions show position of one thing to something else.

Of course, prepositions show time, space, and direction (among other things) of one thing to another thing. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The first thing we need to know here about prepositions, as parents, older students, or adults, is the role that prepositions play in writing. So, today we will examine the role of prepositions—and tips, hints, and lists for learning these vital words. (Find all of my preposition teaching methods in the Preposition Practice Packet here!)

Our “grammar theory” here at Character Ink is that we learn grammar to write or speak.

I am a big “purpose for learning” type of teacher. If we know why we need to learn something, we will be more apt to want to learn it (or at least to see the value in learning it).

Thus, phonics is for reading and spelling. (No reason to learn phonics without also reading from a reader at the same time to apply the phonics skills.) And grammar is for writing and speaking.

So it is with preposition learning. Here is the sequence of “reasoning” for learning prepositions:

(1) Prepositions are words that are found at the beginning of prepositional phrases.

The prepositional phrase

a. A phrase—a group of words that does not contain a subject and a verb
b. Prepositional phrase–a phrase (group of words) that begins with a word known as a preposition

(2) The subject of a sentence is seldom found within a prepositional phrase.

Subjects in a sentence (anywhere in a sentence) must match their verbs in tense, number, etc.
Since the subject of a sentence is not found in a prepositional phrase, if you learn to recognize prepositional phrases easily, you can eliminate them (mentally) and easily find your sentence’s subject(s) and verb(s) to be sure they match.

We learn prepositions so that we can find prepositional phrase. One reason we find prepositional phrases is so that we can isolate them and match our subjects and verbs with each other.

A preposition is a word that shows position or time between one item and another. It is the first word of the prepositional phrase.

A prepositional phrase is a group of words that begins with a preposition and ends with the object of the preposition—the word that shows the “position” from or to. In the prepositional phrase, “the angel flew into the clouds,” clouds is the object of the preposition.

Again, we learn prepositional phrases so that we can mentally eliminate them in order to match our sentence’s subject with its correct verb. Recognizing and mentally removing prepositional phrases is a truly “writing worthy” skill as it will help a person write more grammatically correct.

Consider the sentences below that have the prepositional phrases isolated with parentheses. Once you mentally eliminate these prepositional phrases, you can easily match the sentences’ subjects with their verbs.

1. The boy (in the woods) was lost.

a. Isolating “in the woods” with parentheses keeps the writer from thinking that the sentence’s subject is woods—and keeps the writer from writing “woods were,” which is not correct.
b. The sentence’s real subject is boy and needs the singular verb was.

2. (On the outskirts) (of town,) a little house fell down.

a.This sentence contains a double prepositional phrase.

b. This double prepositional phrase is used as a sentence opener—coming before the sentence’s real subject and real verb.

c. By isolating both prepositional phrase openers with parentheses, we find that the sentence’s real subject is house (or a little house—some grammarians consider the one word subject and some consider the entire subject with its describers) and the sentence’s verb is fell.

3. The blonde girl (out of all the girls) was (on key.)

a. This sentence contains two prepositional phrases

i. Out of all the girls
ii. On key

b. By isolating them with parentheses (and thus, not considering them when we find our subject and verb), we can see that the sentence’s subject is girl and verb is was.

c. If we did not isolate “out of all the girls,” we might be tempted to think that “girls” is our subject and use the plural verb “were.”

Re-read the sample sentences carefully. Without isolating the prepositional phrases, would you have been tempted to use the wrong verbs?

Isolating prepositional phrases is one of the most helpful beginning writing skills that a writer can learn. It helps eliminate one of the most common sentence writing errors—that of mismatched subjects and verbs.

I think we can all agree that learning to recognize prepositional phrases is crucial to great writing! 🙂

Some Other Places to Learn About Prepositions:

Beauty and the Beast Preposition Packet

Preposition Practice Pal (with free download!)

Teaching Prepositions (video)

Prepositions List

5 Beginning Prepositional Tips

5 MORE Prepositions Tips from Language Lady

Punctuation Puzzle – Prepositional Phrases and Commas With Dumbo

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