Basic Rules of Grammar!

1. Subject- The person or thing in a sentence that does an action.
Example: My father mailed the leter.

2. Predicate- The part of the sentence that contains the action (verb).
Example: My sister and I walked home after school.

3. Object- The person or thing affected by the action of the subject.
Example: The baby drank her milk.

4. Sentence- a group of words that makes sense all by itself. A sentence always begins with a capital letter, ends with punctuation mark and contains a subject and predicate.
Example: The brown dog chased the ball.

5. Simple Sentence- A sentence with one subject and one predicate.
Example: The flower is red.
A simple sentence can also have a plural subject and/or a plural predicate.
Examples:
Plural subject: The two friends went to the store.
Plural predicate: The dog jumped and barked.

6. Compound Sentence- A sentence containing two or more simple sentences, joined together by a comma or a conjunction.
Example: I like to ride my bike, and play with my dog.

7. Complex Sentence- A sentence consisting of two sentences joined together in a way that one sentene explains the other.
Example: I ate my lunch because I was hungry.

8. Declarative Sentence- A sentence that states an opinion or fact.
Example: My teacher is nice. My book has 48 pages.

9. Imperative Sentence- A sentence that gives a command.
Example: Take home your workbook.; Be kind to your brother.

10. Interrogative Sentence- A sentence that saks a question and ends with a question mark.
Example: How far can you run?; What time is it?

11. Paragraph- One or more sentences in a grooup related to the same idea or topic. (The first sentence of a paragraph is usually indented.)
Example:
The name of my school is Madison Elementary School. It is located on Pine Street, just down from my house. It has a large playground and twelve classrooms. It is a great place for children to lear and study.
(Note: You need to indent the first line.)

Basic Parts of Speech!

1. Noun- The name of a person, place, thing or idea.
Example: teacher, schools, desk, book, language, recess

2. Proper Nouns- The name of a specific/special person, place, or thing.
Example: Ms. Smith, Saugus, Central Park, September, Tuesday

3. Pronouns- Words that take the place of nouns.
Example: he, she, it, they, we; She called her mother.

4. Possessive Pronouns- Words that take the place of nouns and show possession.
Example: her, his, their, our; We went to her house.

5. Adjectives- Modifying words that describe a noun, such as size, color, and number.
Example: small, heavy, yellow, many, new, soft
The young boy rode his red bike.; It has been a good day.

6. Verbs- Show action or state of being.
Example: see, run, read, swim, think, watch, sing
I walk to school.; Sam waited in the car.; You will enjoy your new school.

7. Adverbs- Describe verbs, adjectives or other adverbs.
Example: loud, quiet, fast, slow, high, up, down, very
She ran home quickly.; My teacher is very nice.

8. Prepositions- Show how a noun or pronoun is related to another word in a sentence. When used with a verb it changes the meaning of the verb.
Example: in, with, from, about, to, of, above, on
The boy with curly hair ate lunch in the park.

9. Conjuctions- Join words, phrases and clauses together.
Example: and, as, or, so, because, however
Randy and kim called because it was my birthday.

10. Articles- Three special words that can be used before a noun.
Example: a, and, the; A bird flew in the tree.

11. Interjections- State a exclamation or remark! (usually followed by an exclamation mark!)
Example: Ouch!, Hooray!, Oh!, Yes!, Wow!

EXAMPLES OF GOOD READING LOG ENTRIES

Proper Heading:
Where the Red Fern Grows		Pgs 99-11		08/26/02

Strategy  #4 - Cause and Effect
Little Ann won the beauty contest in this chapter. The cause of this was Billy 
using Grandpa’s comb and butter and brushing it into her hair.  The effect 
was that her coat was pretty and she won the contest.

Strategy  #5 – Making Predictions
I think Old Dan and Little Ann will win 5 or more coons when Billy goes out 
in the coon hunt. I think the author will want to show us that they are good 
hunters and they won’t let Billy down.


Stategy #6 – Finding word meaning in context
He strutted around with a belligerent attitude

	•Belligerent – eager to fight
The clue the author gave me was that it said that Old Dan was the opposite 
of Little Ann and that he had a tough attitude.

I had a time with this part of their training, but my persistence had no bounds.

	•Persistence – to keep on doing or saying something. To never give up.
The clue the author gave me was that even though the training was hard Billy 
kept on training his dogs until they knew everything there was to know about 
catching a coon.

Strategy #7 – Compare/Contrast
In this book and in Color My Words somebody loses a brother, but in Color 
My Words Ana Rosa loses a brother because he fought for his town and in our 
book Rainie loses a brother because he was angry and stupid.

Strategy #8 – Drawing Conclusions and Making Inferences
The conclusion that I draw from this chapter is that Billy is learning to 
be patient and sometimes things take longer to get, but if you wait you will 
soon get what you need. Billy was not trusting after awhile, but his dad said 
it takes time and so Billy waited and got the coon that he wanted.

Strategy #8 -  Drawing Conclusions and Making Inferences
The conclusion that I can draw from this chapter is that Billy’s dogs will 
always stick together because one time when Ann was hurt Old Dan wouldn't 
go hunting. The dogs wouldn't even go hunting with Billy's dad. That shows 
that Little Ann and Old Dan will not do anything without each other. One time 
Old Dan got stuck in a hole and Little Ann wouldn’t leave him but she would 
bark to get Billy.

Strategy #10 – Identifying Author’s Purpose
The author’s purpose for this chapter was to show us how something bad can 
happen quickly when someone doesn’t use their head and does something in anger.

Strategy #11 – Interpreting Figurative Language
The figure of speech in this chapter came when the Prichard boys made fun
 of the dogs for being small and Billy said that dynamite came in small 
packages. Billy is saying that his dogs are small but strong.

Prepositions

about, above, across, after, against, along, among, around, at, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, between, by, down, during, except, for, from, in, in frony of, inside, instead of, into, like, near, of, off, on, on top of, onto, out of, outside, over, past, since, through, to, toward, under, underneath, until, up, upon, with, within, without.