English Language Arts
Grade 4
15 min
Correct errors in everyday use
Correct errors in everyday use
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1
Introduction & Learning Objectives
Learning Objectives
Identify and correct subject-verb agreement errors in sentences.
Distinguish between and correctly use the homophones to/too/two and there/their/they're.
Correctly use the past tense of common irregular verbs like 'go', 'see', and 'eat'.
Identify and eliminate double negatives from a sentence.
Choose the correct pronoun ('I' or 'me') when used with another noun.
Recognize and fix a sentence fragment.
Have you ever heard someone say 'I seen that movie!' and it sounded a little funny? 🤔 Let's become word detectives and find out why!
In this lesson, we will learn how to spot and fix common mistakes people make when speaking and writing. Fixing these usage errors helps make our ideas supe...
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Key Concepts & Vocabulary
TermDefinitionExample
Subject-Verb AgreementThe rule that a subject (who or what the sentence is about) and its verb (the action word) must match in number. If the subject is one thing (singular), the verb acts singular. If the subject is more than one thing (plural), the verb acts plural.Correct: The dog barks. Incorrect: The dog bark.
HomophonesWords that sound exactly the same but have different spellings and different meanings.Their dog is over there, and they're happy to see him.
Irregular VerbA verb that does not form its past tense by adding '-ed'. It changes in a special way.The past tense of 'go' is 'went', not 'goed'.
Double NegativeAn error where two negative words (like 'not', 'no', 'never', 'none&...
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Key Rules & Conventions
Subject-Verb Matching Rule
Singular subjects get singular verbs (often ending in -s). Plural subjects get plural verbs (often without an -s).
Think of it like a puzzle piece. If the subject is one person or thing (he, she, the cat), the verb usually needs an 's' to fit (runs, plays, jumps). If the subject is plural (they, the cats), the verb doesn't get the 's' (run, play, jump).
The 'One Negative' Rule
A sentence should only have one negative word to express a negative idea.
Words like 'not', 'no', 'never', and 'nothing' are powerful. You only need one! If you say, 'I don't have no money,' it's a mistake. You should say, 'I don't have any money' or 'I have no m...
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Challenging
Which of the following sentences contains NO usage errors?
A.Me and my sister saw less birds at the park today.
B.The dog wagged it's tail whenever we came home.
C.He did very good on his spelling test last week.
D.My friends and I are going to the movies.
Challenging
Read the sentence: 'Her and me seen that their were fewer people at the game then last time.' Which choice corrects ALL the errors in the sentence?
A.She and I saw that there were fewer people at the game than last time.
B.Her and I saw that there were less people at the game than last time.
C.She and me saw that their were fewer people at the game then last time.
D.She and I saw that there were fewer people at the game then last time.
Challenging
The fog crept in on little cat feet, and it's cold breath made us shiver. Even though the sentence uses figurative language, it still has a usage error. What is the error?
A.The word 'crept' should be 'creeped'.
B.The comma after 'feet' is not needed.
C.The word 'it's' should be 'its'.
D.The word 'shiver' should be 'shivering'.
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