For our Tuesday Tip this week, we are back to studying grammar.
The building blocks of language are centered around nouns, verbs, and adjectives. If you cannot identify those three things, the more advanced concepts are going to be more difficult.
Luckily for you, I have a freebie you can grab right now with all the tips and tricks I use in my live IEW® classes.
Now let's look at adjectives!
When I write, adjectives are not on my radar instinctively. I don’t use a lot of detail when explaining things. Admittedly I don’t notice a lot of detail in my life. I’m more of a big picture girl.
So when I started teaching my classes using the IEW® method, this was probably one of the more challenging aspects I faced.
Not only did we have to identify them, but use them, and use them well. In fact, I had to teach the kids synonyms for the adjectives on the banned word list.
All of that is pretty straightforward. But in order to use adjectives that are descriptive, you first have to find them. 😉
When most children are asked to find an adjective, they immediately start searching for a describing word.
That's actually the hard way to do it.
Here's a little secret I teach my students:
Don't look for the adjective first. Find the noun first.
Why?
Because adjectives have one job: They give more information about a noun.
Once you've found the noun, ask these three questions:
- What kind?
- Which one?
- How many?
If you can find the word (or words) that answer those questions, you have found your adjective.
Let's look at a simple example.
The playful puppy chased a ball.
Let's take a look at the noun, puppy.
Now ask:
What kind of puppy?
A playful puppy.
There's your adjective.
Now let's try another sentence.
Three tall trees swayed in the wind.
Find the nouns first.
- Trees is a noun.
- Wind is a noun.
Now ask your questions.
How many trees?
Three.
What kind of trees?
Tall.
Notice that there isn't an adjective describing wind in this sentence. Not every noun has to have one.
Here's one more.
My favorite book sits on the shelf.
Find the nouns.
Book and shelf.
Shelf does not have an adjective, but book does.
Now ask:
Which book?
My book.
What kind of book?
Favorite book.
Many students are surprised to learn that words like my, your, his, her, this, that, these, those, a, an, and the are all considered adjectives because they answer questions like Which one?
Numbers are adjectives, too!
In the sentence:
Five birds landed on the fence.
Ask:
How many birds?
Five.
That's an adjective.
For beginning writers, though, I spend most of our time focusing on adjectives that answer What kind?
Those are the words that paint pictures in the reader's mind.
Compare these two sentences:
The cookies cooled on the counter.
The warm chocolate chip cookies cooled on the kitchen counter.
Which sentence helps you picture the scene?
A few carefully chosen adjectives make all the difference.
So the next time your child gets stuck identifying adjectives, don't tell them to hunt for describing words.
Tell them to find the noun first.
Once they know what the sentence is about, the adjectives become much easier to spot.
Next week, we'll take this one step further by exploring sensory words and how they can add rich detail to your writing. As students build their vocabulary, they naturally begin choosing stronger, more descriptive adjectives.
That's something we spend a lot of time practicing in our IEW® writing classes. Around Lesson 10, students begin revisiting their own compositions, looking for adjectives they can strengthen. They search for synonyms, replace overused words, and learn that the right adjective can paint a much clearer picture for the reader.
We even ban certain words.
It sounds a little cruel, but it's one of the most beneficial challenges in the program. When familiar words are off-limits, they're forced to slow down and think more carefully about the details they want their readers to see, hear, and imagine. That's where some of their best writing begins.
If your child is ready for more structured writing instruction, we offer live, online IEW® writing classes for students beginning in fourth grade.Â
Our classes start August 17. There are a couple that are almost at maximum capacity, so make sure you check those out ASAP!
If they're not quite there yet, my new self-paced course, Writing Ready with Fables, is a gentle place to begin. Designed for younger writers, it introduces narration, vocabulary, and grammar through engaging lessons that build confidence and prepare students for a more formal writing experience when they're ready.
"See" you next week!