This activity is generally used with upper elementary, middle school, and high school students.
1. Develop a list of sentence pairs, one grammatically correct and the other incorrect. For example, if the students need work on subject-verb agreement with the to be verbs is and are, develop sentences such as:
The students are in math class.
The students is in math class.
2. Teach/review the rules for using is and are in relation to singular and plural nouns.
3. Have the children identify the relevant noun (students) as singular or plural.
4. Ask them if are is the correct verb and why.
5. Follow the same steps for the second sentence.
6. After the students have practiced with several similar pairs of sentences, have them work independently or with a partner to complete a different set of sentence pairs.
7. Students compare their work and discuss any responses that don’t agree.
Follow similar steps for other syntactic structures that are difficult for the students.
|