Parts of speech skill cards are a great addition to your grammar curriculum. Bring reading and grammar together by encouraging your kiddos to find grammar skill in their reading books.
Identifying parts of speech
Do you struggle with getting your students to identify parts of speech? No matter how many times you teach a skill, do they still have difficulty identifying basic grammar skills?
Getting my students to identify parts of speech was a huge battle. If you can relate, I want to help!!
Over the years, I have tried various strategies. I found that there is not ONE magic strategy that truly works in helping students learn parts of speech.
I have resorted to implementing various strategies to help my students retain and master those pesky skills that they seem to “forget” year after year.
Grammar Practice Skill cards
I had the bright idea to create these parts of speech practice skill cards for grammar (that’s a mouth full) to help students identify parts of speech in various types of sentences.
There are different types of response cards for reading as well as other subjects, so I thought, “HMMM. I should create something like this for grammar to see if it helps my kiddos?!?”
These cards were a HUGE hit!! My students LOVE them. The skill cards truly give students a sense of ownership, which helps to build their confidence.
When students are exposed to finding parts of speech within a sentence regularly, they become more aware of how the words fit together.
In turn, they become aware of what they are reading and how words work together to create beautiful sentences. They start looking at the words individually which is what we want for our students.
This is also a great way to combine reading and grammar. As your students are reading, they are also searching for grammar skills.
Daily Grammar Instruction
For our grammar instruction, we focus on one skill per week. My grammar lessons do not take long at all.
Depending on what the day has in store for us, we may spend anywhere from 10-15 minutes a day.
On day one, I will introduce the grammar skill through guided notes. As a class, we dive into the breakdown of the skill for that given week.
Once we work through the guided notes, we will spend about 5 minutes working through examples. This workflow follows along with the “I Do, We Do, You, Do” strategy.
My goal is for the kiddos to identify the grammar skill and how it is used in different sentences. Throughout the week, we work on identifying the skill through various fun and engaging activities.
After the skill is introduced on Monday, the students will have until Wednesday/Thursday to turn in a sticky note with an example sentence using the skill correctly.
They can pull this sentence from their AR book, science book, Scholastic News, etc. It does not matter where they pull the sentence from as long as they can correctly identify the grammar skill for that week.
Grab another free parts of speech card for types of sentences.
Related: Teaching four types of sentences
How to Use Parts of Speech skill cards
Students grab a parts of speech skill card with a sticky note and take it back to their spot. Once they find a sentence that works, the student will write the sentence on the sticky note. They can either highlight or underline the focus skill.
I use the sticky notes as an informal assessment to see how the student is doing and if he or she is struggling. If I have several struggling students, I will pull a quick skill strategy group on Thursday to review before the test on Friday.
If I have one or two, I usually pull those students independently to work one-on-one. I pull those students to correct any misconceptions they may have about the focus skill. By doing this weekly task, I am able to build a foundation of mastery for my students.
Build a solid grammar Foundation
Over the years, my grammar instruction has evolved to a place where I can confidently say that most of my students master identifying various parts of speech by simply looking at a sentence.
They can quickly call out the various parts of speech within one sentence. This foundation has taken a long time to build through trial and error.
If you’re interested in learning more about how I teach grammar, you can also read my blog post on how to effectively teach grammar using guided notes and daily lessons to help students master those pesky grammar skills.
Related: How to Effectively Teach Grammar
Final thoughts for Parts of Speech Skill Cards
If you are interested in grabbing a free set of these grammar parts of speech skill cards for various nouns, fill out the form below. The set includes common, proper, singular, plural, singular possessive, plural possessive, collective, concrete, and abstract nouns.
The freebie includes a black and white set as well as a set in color. You can print the colored set on white cardstock or print the black and white set on AstroBrights. I have also included cards for right-hand writers as well as for left-hand writers.
8 Responses
Thank you so much for sharing this resource. I know I will enjoy using these cards with my upper elementary students.
Thank you!
Most welcome!
Thanks for sharing.
I loved your sentence types materials. I am excited to see and use these as well.
Thank you so much! It makes me happy to hear that you are enjoying the resources. 💚