Understanding and Teaching Grammar in the Primary Classroom is a practical guide for trainee and practising teachers, with language, and the way we use it to think and communicate, at its heart. Built on a foundation of how powerful, beautiful and thought-provoking language is, this book uses our intuitions about words and language to form a picture of how grammar works, and how even very young children are masters of its patterns.
Each chapter builds from fundamental concepts up to the fine details, providing an introduction to developing grammatical subject knowledge, alongside explanations of key ideas and vocabulary, including:
• Generality – a look at the general structures of sentences that allow us to learn a language at all
• Specifics – a look at the words and modifications that allow us to use this universal tool to pinpoint the specifics of our thoughts and the world around us
• Relationships – looking at how sentences behave in relation to one another, and how they can be merged in such a way that we can show cause and effect in the world
• Humans – focusing on some of the details and idiosyncrasies we are able to give our language
• Language games – examples of language typical of children, and methods to pull this apart and understand how it works.
At its core is the idea that as our language grows, so our understanding grows; grammar is not the study of what to say and how to say it, but of what it is possible to think, feel and express in words.
Illustrated throughout with practical lesson ideas, helpful tips and easy-to-use classroom strategies, Understanding and Teaching Grammar in the Primary Classroom is a must-read guide for all trainee and practising primary teachers.