The Mini-Lesson section of the book is available as a resource to you as you introduce the new skill each week.

Grade 5 Sample

Week 9: Subject / Verb agreement

Prior knowledge: students understand the terms subject and verb (predicate). They usually create spoken sentences in which the subject and verb agree, but they rely primarily on what sounds right to them from their daily usage, rather than knowing what the phrase subject/ verb agreement means. For students with English as a second language, or those who hear spoken English which is often grammatically incorrect, in their home environment, this skill is much harder. Lesson content: The term Subject / Verb agreement is used frequently in State Assessment directions, and therefore, helping students to have a working knowledge of this term and its meaning, is helpful. * The focus of the lesson is to help students to understand what the term agreement really means, and to use their background knowledge from Week 4 on single and compound subjects to help choose a verb that agrees.

Give students the two sentences below as examples and ask which is correct.
Subject Verb

Ex: Maria is a cheerleader.

Subject Verb

Ex: Maria are a cheerleader. 1. The reason the first sentence is correct, is that the subject (Maria), a single (sometimes called simple) subject, and the verb (is) agree with, or match, each other. 2. The reason the second sentence is not correct, is that the subject (Maria), a single subject, and the verb (are) do not agree. In kid language, they are fighting with each other. (The verb are would match compound subjects.) Using the terms agree with and fighting with from the students everyday experience may be one way to teach the concept of subject-verb agreement.

3.

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4.

Review the terms single subject and compound subject in your mini-lesson. *A single subject is one person, one place, or one thing as the subject of the sentence. *A compound subject includes two or more people, two or more places or two or more things as the subject.

The concept of a single or compound subject is important because choosing the correct verb requires that you make the verb agree with whether you have one person, or more than one person in the subject. Ex: single subject: Ex: compound subject: Maria is a cheerleader. Maria and Denise are cheerleaders.

Daily Language Instruction Copyright 2005 Hogback Press All rights reserved