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Grammar practice is one of those things most teachers just don’t have time for. Our intentions are pure, but our schedule is packed. Teaching and practicing grammar standards always seem to take a backseat to other subjects. However, our students are in desperate need of grammar instruction and practice. With social media and texting, kids are picking up bad habits every day.
I’ll admit, there were days in my teaching career when I didn’t teach grammar at all. I just couldn’t find the time, and I’m guessing I’m not the only one. If you want to incorporate more grammar practice into your daily classroom schedule, this is for you. Here are five simple ways to get in some grammar practice every day, plus a few more ideas for squeezing it in.
1. Morning Work or Warm-Ups for Grammar Practice
Grammar practice in the morning (or as a warm-up) can be as simple as writing a sentence on the board and asking your students to diagram the sentence. You could also use a sentence or question that is more specific to a skill you are focusing on. For example, you may write, “The football player played with his friends and drinks lots of water.” You could then ask students to identify the error in this sentence and explain why it is incorrect. This is an excellent way to practice finding inappropriate shifts in verb tense, yet it hardly takes up any instructional time.
One of my favorite morning routines is using spiral review. Using a grammar spiral review system is the easiest way to ensure students are getting a daily dose of grammar.
You can grab a free sample of my favorite grammar spiral reviews HERE and give them a try in your classroom.
2. Games and Centers
At some point in your day, you more than likely have your students play games in small groups or move throughout center activities. This is the perfect time to incorporate a grammar practice game. If you have access to a smartboard or tablet, here are a few websites your students might enjoy:
Another option is to incorporate some hands-on grammar games that your students can play in small groups. If you want grammar games to cover you for the entire school year, click HERE.
3. Tie It into Writing
Any time your students write, give them a grammar skill to focus on. I like to stick to one skill, but if you feel your students can handle more, go for it. For example, as I send my students off to work on their narrative writing piece, I’ll tell them to focus on using quotation marks correctly. At this point, they’ve already been taught how to use dialogue in their writing. Now, as they write, they are paying attention to make sure they have punctuated dialogue correctly. As I walk around the room, I also keep this grammar focus in mind and give support when needed.
Whenever I can, I also try to address a language standard (types of sentences, comma usage, verb tense shifts, etc.) during my writing lesson. Teaching grammar happens more organically this way, as opposed to teaching grammar in isolation. If your students are still working on the basics, here is how I teach paragraph writing.
4. Homework (Daily Review Is Key!)
Yes! Homework can be a highly effective time to get in some grammar practice. I do not like to give a lot of homework, so I always make sure the assignments are very short and meaningful. Just like with morning work, I find a spiral review system works best for homework. The benefits? There are only a handful of questions per night, parents stay informed, I can see where my students are still struggling, and students are getting some quality practice without taking any instructional time. It’s a win, win, win.
I cannot say enough about how much daily grammar reviews have helped my students! Not only did a daily language review help my students master and retain skills, but it took up no time at all. My favorite daily language review includes about 6-8 questions per day and only requires one sheet of paper per student each week. The bottom row reviews the newest skill I taught, while all of the rows above review everything else from previous lessons. Whether I had the time that day to teach grammar or not, I knew my students were getting the opportunity to practice and sharpen their skills. Parents love it because it is short and predictable, and it won’t eat up your valuable class time.
After seeing the positive impact daily reviews had on my students, I created these spiral language review sheets. They are available for grades K-8, and the best part is that they are totally editable, so you can add, delete, or change anything that doesn’t fit your teaching. You can learn more about how I use them in my post on language spiral review for daily grammar practice.
5. During a Read-Aloud
Read-alouds are an effective way to model grammar and language skills at their best. Maybe you notice a particular author uses figurative language throughout their writing. This would be an ideal time to point it out to your students and have a discussion. You can then use the book as a mentor text to show quality writing and grammar usage in future lessons.
One of my favorite books is Saturdays and Teacakes by Lester L. Laminack. I’ve used this book as a mentor text to model various grammar skills such as strong verbs, proper nouns, dialect, and figurative language. It’s a fantastic book. If you don’t already have it, I highly recommend you add it to your collection.
More Ways to Squeeze in Grammar
Inspect Your Schedule
This sounds silly, but I need to address it. Each year I would get a new schedule from my administration. Sometimes I loved it, and sometimes I hated it. The worst part was when I would have a weird little 10-15 minute block of time right in the middle of the day (maybe between lunch and recess). If you have something like this in your schedule and you don’t know what to do with it, you may want to consider using this time for a daily language lesson. You may be surprised at how much you can get done in such a small amount of time.
Teach with Mentor Sentences
When I was in the classroom, I loved teaching grammar using mentor sentences! Not only are the lessons short and sweet, but they are also highly effective. If you have never read the book Mechanically Inclined by Jeff Anderson, I would suggest you do so.
I would place a mentor sentence (based on the skill I’m trying to teach) on the board. The first day, I would invite my students to “notice,” jotting down anything they noticed about the sentence. The next day, we would discuss the focus skill, and I would invite my students to imitate the mentor sentence. Over the next day or so, we would share with partners and practice writing our own sentences based on the mentor sentence. Overall, this way of teaching grammar only took me about 10 minutes each day. It was a total time saver, and my students really grasped the skills being taught.
Rebecca Rojas from Create Teach Share has a fantastic resource that follows this same format, and then some! If you are interested in learning more about using mentor sentences to teach grammar, you can check it out here.
Sneak in Grammar Everywhere!
Sneaking in some extra grammar practice isn’t as hard as you would think. You could use grammar exit tickets, morning work, homework, grammar games and centers, etc. At times, I would even ask my students questions in the hall while walking to lunch. Who said you can’t keep your kids learning and thinking while walking in line? ๐ These digital grammar games have become my new favorite!
I hope I’ve given you some ideas for getting more grammar instruction and practice into your daily classroom routine. Come follow my Grammar board on Pinterest for even more ideas. Happy teaching!
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