I’m sure you know teaching grammar is not easy.  There are so many different rules and exceptions to the rules when teaching grammar lessons.  Plus there are so many grammar areas to target.  It can be overwhelming but one thing that I have found helps when it comes to teaching grammar is make it interactive and use lots of repetition.  The more practice the better and sometimes the students just have to memorize the ending on a word to make it grammatically correct.  I mean those irregular plurals can be challenging!  I have lots of grammar activities and games to target different grammar rules and give the students multiple opportunities to practice learning grammar rules.  I’ll share some of my go to activities to make teaching grammar as engaging and interactive as possible.
One thing I use with my students is different Grammar Boards and smaller Grammar Cards to target these skills.  I use these different card sets during small group instruction but they are also great to use at work task centers.  Sometimes while using these different cards I play a simple game with the students.  My students have to complete a set number of the grammar boards/cards and then get to take a turn in the game so it helps keep the students engaged.  I created a variety of different Grammar Boards and Grammar Cards sets to target specific grammar areas with lots of cards per set so my students get tons of practice.

Regular and Irregular Past Tense Grammar Boards – This set contains 48 regular past tense boards and 48 irregular past tense boards.  The students need to determine the correct form of the regular or irregular past tense verb form given a choice of 3 answers.  If you use these during small group instruction each student can get a set number of cards.  Then you can read the sentence with the answer choices for the student and have the student tell you the correct answer.  If the student can read you can use these boards during independent center time and the students can use paperclips, clothespins, or dry erase markers to mark their answer and that way you can check which ones the student got correct and which need more practice.

Future Tense Grammar Boards – This set also contains 48 future tense boards which are set up the same way.  The student needs to determine the correct future tense verb form to fill in the sentence.  You can again have the student verbally tell you the answer or mark it will a clothespin or dry erase marker.  

Regular and Irregular Plural Grammar Boards – This set contains 60 regular and irregular plural boards.  The students need to determine the correct plural form for each picture given a choice of 3 answers.  Many of those irregular plurals the students just need exposure and practice to learn/memorize them.  Again you can use these during direct instruction time with your students or have your students independently mark the correct answer and you can check it when they finish a set number of cards.

 

Pronoun Grammar Boards – This set contains 60 pronoun grammar boards.  The student needs to choose the sentence using the correct he/she/they pronoun to pair with the given picture.  Again the more practice the better to learn those pronoun forms.

Present Progressive Grammar Cards – The set contains 72 Present Progressive Grammar Cards.  The students need to finish the sentence by adding the correct present progressive verb form.  I have students who need to work on answering “what doing” questions, using correct pronouns, using correct helping verbs, and expanding their utterances so these cards help target all of those skills.

 

Helping Verb Grammar Cards – Has/Have and Is/Are – This set contains 72 cards for each helping verb set.  Lots of practice for these helping verbs.  You can read the card to your student and have them determine the correct helping verb to fill in the blank.  For example “the cars ___ wheels”.  I have the student determine if they need to use “has” or “have”.

For students that can read you can have the student complete this as an independent task.  I just wrote “has” and “have” or “is” and “are” on index cards.  I give the students a set number of cards and have the student place the cards in the correct category.  Then I have the student read the cards to me to check them.  This again helps them practice hearing it correctly plus it allows you to check and correct any errors the student makes during the independent sorting task.

Possessive Pronoun Grammar Cards – This set also contains 72 cards which require the student to select the correct possessive pronoun to complete the sentence.

You can play different Grammar related games too.  Regular and Irregular Plural Bingo is something I created to use with my students.  I made 5 different regular plural boards, 5 irregular plural boards, and 5 combination boards.  No 2 boards are the same and all the boards do not have the same pictures so it is more challenging for the students.  Students think they are playing a game but really working on learning and practicing adding different plural endings.

Sasha created a bunch of different adapted books which all target different Grammar skills.  I shared about some of them previously in this literacy series with the post “Using Adapted Books with Older Students”.  Here are a few examples of different grammar themed adapted books for a quick overview.

You can work on selecting the correct is/are/am helping verb to complete the given sentence in the adapted book “Verbs – Present Progressive”.

Pick the correct adverb to fit the sentence in the adapted book “Adverbs – Pick the Best Adverb”

Select the correct verb form to complete the sentence in the adapted book “Verbs – Past, Present, and Future Progressive”.

For more information about these types of adapted books you can click the link – Parts of Speech BUNDLE Adapted Book Series.

You can also play different “I have….Who has….?” games to practice using has/have helping verbs.  For example I created some “I have…Who has…?” Category Games.  While the target is categories your students also can work on using the correct has/have helping verb form while playing the game.

The more practice the better when it comes to teaching those difficult grammar rules.  Try to make it interactive and interesting to keep the students engaged.