How to Teach Grammar Skills So Kids Remember

How do you make grammar meaningful and fun? Grammar skills were not my strength as a student. I’ll admit that I’m not a grammarian (which I believe is a superpower, btw). However, I believe that my battle with learning and understanding grammar makes me better at developing and teaching grammar activities and grammar lessons.

I admit to students that I struggled through school as far as academics were concerned. This struggle is always present when I design a lesson. I have a personal experience that helps me understand how and why someone doesn’t “get it”.

The idea of grammar can be confusing. It’s really asking

Why do we speak and write the way that we do?

Most students have never considered this reflective question. It’s a fun one to begin with when I introduce grammar. So here’s tip #1:

Tip #1: Allow students to stop and think about grammar skills and why they speak or write in a specific way.

Giving time to reflect is an important skill. It’s also something that many students have never done. This is why I love to play with grammar. I like to start by writing a sentence on the board and labeling the parts of speech..

The fluffy dog ran down the road.

Here we start with the noun phrase, which is standard in our language.

Then I’ll say it aloud and ask the class if they understand what I just said.

Next, I’ll write the same words but mix up the order. I’ll still label them. Again, I’ll ask if they understand the sentence.

Ran dog down the road the fluffy.
Here I’ve changed the order of most every word. Notice I start with the verb (action).

OR it could look like this: Fluffy the dog ran down the road.

OR this: Down the road ran the fluffy dog. OR…
Let kids play with reversing the order of the words to see what they come up with.

They’ll notice that we use articles in front of nouns, and that the adjective is best before the noun. Verbs often make more sense when they come after a noun or pronoun. They’ll also note that the meaning of the sentence depends on the order of the words.

Letting students play with grammar is a key part of understanding what it is that they’re being asked to learn. It’s this play that’s much more likely to stick than any worksheet or factual lesson on parts of speech. THIS IS THE ANCHOR.

Check out this fun website for determining parts of speech. Students can type in a sentence, and it will color code the parts of speech.
https://parts-of-speech.info

TIP #2: Use books to help you teach grammar skills

This can come in the form of books specifically about certain parts of speech, like Brian P. Cleary’s series Words Are CATegorical. He tackles the parts of speech in funny, memorable ways. My personal favorite: I and You and Don’t Forget Who (What is a Pronoun?) Check out this fun pronoun unit to increase engagement and learning.

I also love using Scholastic’s Grammar Tales. These picture books are fun, come with a few worksheets, and there’s usually a bingo game at the end. You can always reference these books in your teaching.

Another great way to make grammar relevant is to use the books you are currently reading. Identify the skill you are learning and find several examples with your students. Then have them go on a hunt for similar examples. Let’s say you’re working on prepositional phrases. It’s easy peasy to find examples in most any text.

Tip #3: Play grammar games to reinforce grammar skills

I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to associate fun and grammar. Classroom grammar games are just the ticket. I Have… Who Has….games are easy to create using 3 x 5 cards. You can make the set specific to the skill you are teaching. Then you can add in skills, so the deck keeps growing. For example,

This is the first card. Who has a 1-letter subject pronoun?

I have “I”. Who has an object pronoun beginning with the letter “M”?

I have “me”. Who has…

You can see how it goes and how easy these are to create based on the grammar lesson skills you’d like to review. I love having students complete against their best time, which I write on the board as ‘Time to Beat”. Read this blog post with even more tips for teaching grammar.

If you’re looking for a fun way to review grammar, I also love using Grammar Color By Code pages. These are PERFECT to use with partners, before holidays, on Fridays, and when you need a guest teacher. They are no-prep and EASY. Each unit comes with examples and definitions of each part of speech. AND, they’re differentiated!

Be on the look out for more grammar tips in future blog posts.

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