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In Year 2, your child's confidence in reading and writing should be growing. They'll have a basic understanding of key grammar concepts, and will be ready to take the next learning leap!
Here are some of the main skills needed to master grammar in Year 2:
Let’s take a look at some of these concepts in detail.
A collective noun is a word that names a group of people, animals, or things.
The choir sang loudly.
- Choir is the collective noun for a group of singers.
I saw a herd of elephants drinking.
- Herd is the collective noun for a group of elephants.
On Night Zookeeper, your child can practise and build up on their knowledge and understanding of collective nouns. In the activity below, children have to match the collective noun with the group it describes.
Most nouns can be singular or plural. A singular noun is just one, a plural noun is more than one.
Singular noun: apple
Plural noun: apples
Singular noun: fox
Plural noun: foxes
Usually, to make a singular noun plural, we add the letter "s" or the letters "es".
Nouns that can't be made plural by adding "s" or "es" are called irregular plural nouns. Irregular plural nouns need to be learnt as they do not always follow a pattern.
Here are some common examples:
Ask your child to turn singular nouns into plural nouns throughout the day. You can do this activity over breakfast or whilst taking a walk in the park!
Pronouns are words that replace nouns to avoid repetition in a sentence. Some of the most commonly used pronouns are she, her, hers, he, him, and his.
Reflexive pronouns are used to refer back to the subject of a sentence.
1) Riya smiled to herself.
- The reflexive pronoun refers back to the noun, Riya.
2) Sam and the Grandmaster kept the bananas for themselves.
- The reflexive pronoun refers back to the nouns, Sam and Grandmaster.
3) I picked these trousers myself.
- The reflexive pronoun refers back to the pronoun, I.
These are all reflexive pronouns:
myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves
Verbs tell us the action that is happening in a sentence. When we want to show that an action happened in the past, we add the letters -ed to regular verbs.
talk ⇨ talked
bump ⇨ bumped
hook ⇨ hooked
Irregular verbs don’t follow the pattern of adding -ed when we want to show an action happened in the past. Past tense irregular verbs have a different spelling.
eat ⇨ ate
fall ⇨ fell
catch ⇨ caught
There are about 200 irregular verbs in the English language that children need to learn. You can download the full list here.
Adjectives and adverbs are both types of describing words, but they describe different things.
Adjectives describe nouns (naming words).
1) loud cat - adjective noun
2) tidy room - adjective noun
Adverbs describe verbs (action words).
1) slowly walk - adverb verb
2) happily sing - adverb verb
Night Zookeeper is a comprehensive English program that helps children develop their reading and writing skills in a fantastically fun way!
Our reading & writing program for kids offers countless ways for your child to develop key grammar skills, including interactive lessons on nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, exciting games for bitesize learning, and grammar challenges.
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