Another thing we worked on yesterday was inflectional endings. I adore my Wednesday student - he's very energetic like my son, loves baseball, and always has something very interesting to tell me. But he has this habit of skipping over inflectional endings!
(What's an inflectional ending? When we add letters to the end of a word to change its meaning. Some examples are changing verb tenses by adding -s, -ed, and -ing, making a word an adverb by adding -ly, or making a noun plural by adding -s or -es.)
This dear child will see the sentence: The cats played in the tree.
And he will read: The cat play in the tree.
He's CLOSE, but he's missing important stuff in those words! So I've been trying to figure out how to get him to notice these letters and how their presence changes a word. Last night we focused on verbs: I had him read some sentences I wrote, identify the verb, and then write the verb in the correct column, according to its ending. He loves writing on the white board, so he happily wrote the lists.
I'm working on making something cool that we can come back to and practice with. Stay tuned. :)
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UPDATE: I created a file folder board game with two verb focus options: inflectional endings, or helping verbs. These 2-4 player detective- themed games are perfect for literacy centers, small group work, or independent play. Assemble as file folder games.
In the first game, students draw a card, read the sentence, identify the helping verb, then move their piece to the space on the game board with that helping verb.
In the second game, students draw a card, read a sentence, find the action verb, and identify the inflectional ending (s, ed, or ing.) The same 117 sentences are used (some are modified) for both games.
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