Every card in Grammar and vocabulary
The whole deck, in order — so you can read it through before your child ever sees it.
- A word that names an idea or feeling you cannot touch, such as justice or courage
An abstract noun
HintHope, freedom and fear are real, yet nothing you could hold in your hand.
WhyConcrete nouns name what the senses can meet; this kind names ideas. Both behave the same way in a sentence, which is why they share the wider label.
- A helping verb such as 'is' or 'do' that lets a main verb form a tense or a question
An auxiliary verb
HintThe helper in 'I am running' and 'Do you know?' — it props up the main action word.
Why'Be', 'have' and 'do' are the common ones; 'can', 'might' and 'should' are the modal kind. Spotting them is how you tell 'was walking' from 'walked'.
- Word class depends on the job a word does: in 'Swimming keeps me fit', the word 'swimming' is doing the job of a ____.
noun
HintIt is the thing the sentence is about — swap in 'it' and the line still works.
WhyA word carries no class of its own until it is used: 'swimming' names an activity here, describes in 'swimming pool', and states an action in 'she is swimming'. Test the job, not the ending.
- A clause that cannot stand on its own as a sentence
A subordinate clause
HintIt leans on the main part — 'because it was raining' leaves you waiting for the rest.
WhyIt carries extra information — a reason, a time, a condition — and needs a main clause to attach to. That pairing makes a complex sentence.
- 'Its' or 'it's': which spelling is the contraction meaning 'it is'?
It's
HintThe mark stands in for a missing letter — the possessive form has no mark at all.
WhyThe apostrophe marks the dropped 'i' of 'is'. Belonging-to-it takes no apostrophe, just as 'his' and 'hers' take none.
- The phrase 'two weeks notice' is missing an apostrophe. Where must it go?
After the s: weeks'
HintRead it as notice OF two of them — the period of time owns the notice, and that owner is plural.
WhyTime and measure phrases take a possessive apostrophe because the period owns what follows: 'a day's delay', 'three months' pay'. The mark sits after the owner exactly as it is spelled, so a plural already ending in s takes it last.
- Where does the comma go when a line of speech is followed by 'she said'?
Inside the inverted commas
HintIt stays within the speech marks, tucked up against the last spoken word.
WhyThe punctuation belongs to the words that were actually spoken, so it is kept with them. The reporting clause then begins in lower case.
- What is the term for the smallest unit of meaning inside a word, so that 'cats' holds two of them and 'unhelpful' holds three?
Morpheme
HintSmaller than a word, larger than a letter — the plural 's' counts as one all by itself.
WhyBreaking a long word into these blocks unlocks spelling and meaning together: 'trans' means across, 'port' means carry and 'able' makes an adjective, so 'transportable' decodes without a dictionary.
- The error of joining two complete sentences with only a comma
A comma splice
Hint'It was late, we went home' — the join is far too weak to hold two whole ideas.
WhyThree repairs work: a full stop, a joining word such as and or but, or a semicolon. The choice depends on how closely the ideas belong together.
- Which is correct: 'the box of apples were heavy' or 'the box of apples was heavy'?
The box of apples was heavy
HintAsk what the sentence is really about — the container, not the things inside it.
WhyThe verb agrees with the subject of the sentence, not with the nearest noun. Words sitting between the two are there to distract you.
- 'The window was broken by the boy' is written in which voice?
The passive voice
HintThe thing that had the action done to it has been shoved to the front of the sentence.
WhyIt moves the doer to the end, or drops them entirely — which is why reports and apologies reach for it when nobody wants to say who is responsible.
- How formal or informal a piece of writing or speech is
Register
HintThe same idea can be dressed in a tracksuit or in a dinner jacket.
WhyIt is set by vocabulary, sentence length and contractions. A job application and a message to a friend say things at opposite ends of the scale.
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Keep what you learn
Here, nothing is saved. In your child’s own sky every card is scheduled — it comes back just before they’d forget it — and the professor who wrote it is one tap away.