How to Teach Nouns, Adjectives and Verbs

Identifying the parts of speech in text is a quick reinforcement activity.

There are nine parts of speech: verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, articles and interjections. These designations are not categories of types of words, but rather word uses. Rote memorization of these parts of speech is essential when learning the technical composition of Romance languages. However, memorization should be combined with activities that require practical application to ensure student comprehension.

Things You'll Need

• Paper
• Marker
• Tape
• Pencil

Instructions

1. Define nouns, adjectives and verbs using terms that your students understand. Provide examples of each. For example: A noun may be a person, place, thing or idea. Hat, rat, elbow and love are all nouns.

2. Work with students to list the names of objects and people in your classroom. Provide them with note cards and tape. Ask them to find the listed items and label them with a sample sentence using at least one noun, adjective and verb (e.g., "The blackboard is dusty.").

3. Photocopy and enlarge a passage from a fictional book. Instruct students to underline nouns once, underline verbs twice and write "adj." over adjectives. Review the worksheet one sentence at a time, permitting students to write the sentence on the board and insert notations for each part of speech.

4. Permit students to write an essay or story on any topic, underlining the parts of speech they use.

5. Write a passage and omit two or three words from each sentence. Label each blank space with a part of speech. List the parts of speech that are missing without making reference to the topic of the passage or the context of the sentence. Ask students to suggest replacement words. Insert the new words into the passage and read the new text out loud.

6. Listen to educational music such as "Schoolhouse Rock." Associating images and rhymes with the different parts of speech will make it easier to remember them.

Tips & Warnings

• Nouns are words that refer to a person, place, thing or idea (e.g., boy, cat, love). Adjectives are words that describe nouns (e.g., silly boy, happy cat, life-long love). Verbs are words that describe the actions or state of being of a noun (e.g., "The silly boy danced.").

References

• Spark Notes: Parts Of Speech
• Web English Teacher: Grammar
• Capital Community College: Definitions Of Basic Sentenec Parts
• University Of Ottawa: Parts Of Speech