Grammar & Conventions - Common Core (Part 2)

In part I, our blog covered Capitalization, Complete Sentences and  End Punctuation. Now to the second part of our Grammar & Conventions series...

4. Nouns

Common nouns are general (not specific) words for people, places, things, and ideas. Unless they begin a sentence, common nouns do not begin with a capital letter.

Examples of common nouns:

people: woman places: river

things: pencil ideas: dream

5. Phonemes

Phonemes are small units of speech sounds that are created by letters and letter pairs. They are useful in learning how to sound out words in reading and writing. They refer to only what you hear, not to what you see.

The and in "pin" and "pit" are different phonemes.

The er in “turn” and “flirt” are the same phoneme.

6. Prepositions

Prepositions give information about the position of something or someone. They are usually placed before nouns, noun phrases, and pronouns in a sentence. In the following examples, prepositions are underlined and nouns/pronouns are in italic font.

• I read a book during my visit to the library.
• They waited for him beyond the bathroom.
• I looked toward the sky and into the clouds.

Prepositions: Direction/position words—
to, from, with, for, into, in, between, beyond, by, during, down, under, off, across, out, above, before, on, of, toward