Parent Tips: Practice 4.1.3

In Lesson 4.1, we teach kids about the concept of grammar as understood by linguists and by copy editors—descriptive versus prescriptive. Most kids (and adults) have negative associations with the concept of grammar, for fairly understandable reasons. So, your child has also learned how the concept of word case is relevant to their personal development as a human.

In Practice 4.1.3, we ask your child to connect their understanding of the concept of word and phrase classes with the way that words and phrases relate to each other in sentences. In stage terms: how a specific person takes on a role in a specific play. Many adults grew up diagramming sentences to ram home an analysis framework of sentence syntax. Practice 4.1.3 is not a traditional sentence diagramming exercise, though. Instead, our focus is on making sure your kid understands the relationship between word and phrase class with the word/phrase’s sentence role. Making this connection is a Big Brain Leap because it is the moment when kids realize that we use different types of words in English, that words can play different roles in a sentence, that English is rich with new words but relatively rigid about sentence structure, that the words we use in a sentence reflect the development stage of our mind, and that words express key elements of our humanity and shape our experience of the world.

So, if you see your child struggling to diagram the perfect sentence or unable to name the role of a specific word or phrase in the sentence, tell them to name what they can and focus on tracing the connections between the sentence role and word/phrase class. They can use our Glossary to help them. Also, while we want your child’s work to be readable, we don’t care if their drawings are messy.

This practice assumes a basic understanding of sentence structure. If your child is not yet familiar with the essential elements of a sentence, please have them review Lesson 1.3: Sentence Basics.