SPAG: Spelling, Punctuation & Grammar
What do I need to know by the end of Year 6?
Noun
A person, a place or a thing.
Example: The brown pencil balanced on the end of the table.
Pronoun
A pronoun takes the place of a noun to avoid
repetition.
Example: The boy picked up the football and kicked it as hard as he could.
Verb
A word used to describe an action.
Example: The children ran, skipped and hopped in the playground.
Adverb
A word that describes a verb.
Example: The chef mixed the dough quickly.
Preposition
A preposition tells you when or where something is.
Example: After walking for hours, she rested on a small hill.
Conjunction
A word that joins two sentences or clauses, including
when, if, because, although.
Example: You can have a pudding if you finish your main course.
Fronted adverbial
A fronted adverbial goes at the beginning of a
sentence. It describes where, when or how.
Example: Before the sun came up, he quickly ate his breakfast.
How to use:
Example:
Singular: the boy’s bicycle
Plural: the wolves’ prey
Irregular: the children’s class assembly
apostrophes for possession
How to use:
present perfect tense
Present perfect tense is used for activities that started in the past but are still true now, or have an effect on
what is happening now.
Example:
I had walked for three hours.
I have lost my passport.
Active Voice and Passive Voice
Active: An active verb has its usual pattern.
Example: The school arranged a visit. (active) A visit was arranged by the school. (passive)
Antonym
If the meaning of 2 words are opposite
Example: hot – cold/light - dark
Synonym
If the meaning of 2 words is similar
Example: Walk – stroll, saunter, wander
Article
The articles the (definite) and a or an are the most
common type of determiner.
Example: The dog found a bone in an old house.
Homophone
Example: hear/here
Two different words are homophones if they sound
exactly the same when pronounced.
some/sum there/their
Modal verb
Shows the possibility of something.
Example: I can do this work/I should walk quietly to the classroom/I would like a sweet.
Phrase
Example: The enormous crocodile/the hairy dog
A string of words without a verb.