Information on how first graders learn grammar/language
This is to let you know how your child will learn about language and grammar skills in first grade. We do eventually get into something called D.O.L(daily oral language) and actual grammar skills.
First, we are learning right now about the difference between letters, words, and sentences. You might think this is so basic and kids know this, but some don’t. If I use the word “letter” or “word” or “sentence” first graders need to know what this means. Even though your child can read anything, he/she might not know how to identify/distinguish these terms.
I do this by our morning message and interviewing students. Some of you might have already seen a morning message come home. I let students keep these after we are done using it. Everyone will get to take many home this year. You will see a lot of circles all over it, counting, and other marks. We count the words and the sentences. We talk about how sentences start with an upper case and end with punctuation. We discover there are different types of punctuation. We learn that just because I am at the end of the paper does not mean that is the end of the sentence. We hunt for the longest sentence and the shortest sentence. We learn that the date, greeting, and closing are not sentences. If there are special names, we learn that they have an uppercase letter. We hunt for sounds also. You will also see in our hallway that I am interviewing each student. I choose a student to come in front. We look at their name. We count the letters. We find just the vowels. We clap the syllables(beats). I cut it up and the students chooses another student to put it together—like a name puzzle. We use pom-poms and cheer the name. Then, we ask just 5 questions for the student. I always get the first question—How old are you. We learn about different kinds of questions to ask. This helps us learn how to ask questions, not just tell something. The students love learning about each other. After asking the questions, the students help me remember what they ask and we put it into sentences. We learn about different ways to start the sentences so they all don’t start the same way. We read and reread the sentences and story many times—showing off our best reading. This helps us learn sight words and fluency in reading.
After we are done interviewing all the students in our class, I will start D.O.L and grammar skills, such as sentence parts, nouns, verbs, etc. In D.O.L, I will give one sentence each day. This will be a minilesson on skills such as capitalization and punctuation. On Fridays, I will give a D.O.L Quiz over those same sentences we practiced. I will take a capitalization grade and a punctuation grade only—even though we might talk about other grammar rules. You will also see grammar worksheets come home and we will have 4-5 tests(brainthinkers) throughout the year to check on these skills. I like to also make grammar hands-on and fun so we will do activities to learn these skills also.
I hope this helps understand how we learn these skills. These skills easily carry over to our reading and writing. Many times throughout the year, I will have students use sticky notes during our reading time to hunt for nouns, contractions, verbs, etc. I hope you will point all these skills out when you read and work at home together.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Thanks, Miss White