Word order in english sentence for kids

Correct word order has a significant role in teaching a foreign language. Many learners automatically order the words in a sentence as in their native language. However, since different languages have various sentence structures, ESL teachers should be very attentive in dealing with this topic. Despite its difficulty, it can be taught in fun and entertaining ways to primary school children. Here we present activities that will definitely come in handy to practise word order with your kids.

Rainbow sentences

One of the fascinating ways of practising word order with kids is definitely with Rainbow order. Distribute the mixed parts of the sentence to your students and ask them to put the words in the correct order according to rainbow colours (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). To make it more fun, you can also play the rainbow song. Children really enjoy doing this activity.

Question cards

Use question cards to introduce the rules of word order to your students, such as Who/what, what happens, where, when, etc. Provide with an example (Bob goes to school every day.) and get your students to put the mixed words in the correct order.

Expanding the phrase

Write a word on the board. Ask your students to take in turns and add extra words to make it into a longer and longer sentence. It must be a logically coherent sentence. Students cannot remove words, but they can change the order while adding new words. My kids really enjoy this activity, especially when I ask them to use their imagination and expand the phrase in a funny way.

Cat

• A black cat
• A big black cat
• Tom saw a big black cat
• Tom saw a big black cat in the forest
• Tom saw a big black cat in the forest last night

Removing words from a sentence

This activity is considered to be the opposite of the previous one. Here you provide your students with a long sentence and ask them to take turns and to remove words so that it always remains a sentence.

• Kate doesn’t like cartoons because they are loud, so she doesn’t watch them.
• Kate doesn’t like cartoons because they are loud, so she doesn’t watch.
• Kate doesn’t like cartoons because they are loud.
• Kate doesn’t like cartoons.

Brainstorming sentences

Ask your students to work in pairs or in groups. Choose a topic that the students are familiar with (weather, animals, food, jobs, etc) and get them to make up as many correct and long sentences as possible.

Example: Animals

Group A: Crocodiles are very dangerous animals.

Group B: Many people are afraid of spiders and not mice.

Group A: It is very difficult to survive crocodile’s attack because they attack very quickly.

Group B: Last summer, when we were staying in a forest, we suddenly saw a wolf near our tents.

Gringle

This is a guessing game. Choose a player, who will think of a verb his/her classmates must guess what verb this student is thinking of. The verb is replaced by a nonsense word such as “gringle”. The students then ask questions, like this:

— Can you gringle at night?

— Who gringles more — girls or boys

— Do you use a special object to gringle?

— When do you usually gringle?

— Is gringling a fun or a serious action?

Why do people gringle?This game is a magnificent tool for practising word order in interrogative sentences with your kids. With the help of numerous questions, they revise different types of questions, such as General and Special ones.

This was the list of the activities that I usually use with my kids to practise word order. I am sure you are aware of some other fascinating ways as well. Share them in the comments below.

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A word order English worksheet is a tool used to teach and practice the correct order of words in English sentences. English word order can be complex, and it varies depending on the type of sentence being used. For example, in a simple sentence, the subject comes before the verb, while in a complex sentence, the order may vary depending on the clauses and phrases involved.

A word order English worksheet typically includes a variety of sentence types, such as affirmative, negative, interrogative, and imperative. The worksheet may also include sentence fragments or scrambled sentences that require the student to put the words in the correct order.

By practicing word order using a worksheet, students can improve their understanding of sentence structure and develop their ability to communicate effectively in English. Word order is an important aspect of English grammar and is essential for clear and accurate communication.

Word order English worksheets can be used by teachers in the classroom or by individuals studying English as a second language. They can be adapted to suit different levels of proficiency, from beginner to advanced, and can be used as a supplement to other learning materials.

Overall, a word order English worksheet is a valuable tool for developing proficiency in English sentence structure. By practicing word order, students can improve their writing and speaking skills and become more confident in their ability to communicate in English.

Word order is part of syntax, which is part of grammar. Word order may be different in different languages. For example, English «I play tennis only sometimes» would be in German Ich spiele nur manchmal Tennis, literally «I play only sometimes tennis». In Norwegian, the same sentence would be Jeg spiller bare tennis noen ganger («I play tennis only sometimes»).

In Portuguese, the sentence could be Eu só jogo tênis algumas vezes («I only play tennis sometimes), but word order can be changed to Eu jogo tênis só algumas vezes («I play tennis only sometimes»). However, Eu jogo só tênis algumas vezes is not allowed («I play only tennis sometimes») because the meaning would be changed.

Subject-verb-object

In English, a simple sentence with a verb (an action), subject (who or what is doing the action), and an object (to whom or what the action is done) is written with a subject-verb-object word order (SVO). For example, in the sentence «Robert opens the door», «Robert» is the subject, «opens» is the verb and «door» is the object. SVO is the second-most common word order among all languages and is used in 42% of them. Examples are Mandarin Chinese, Bahasa Melayu, Bahasa Indonesia, Spanish, French, Italian, Thai and Vietnamese. While some of the above languages can use other word orders, such as SOV and VSO, they use SVO for the simplest sentences.

In other languages, sentences can use other word orders. Consider Robert opens the door. In English, changing the word order to «The door opens Robert» would change the meaning of the sentence. In Latin, however, Robertus ianuam aperit and ianuam Robertus aperit mean the same. Ianuam is in the accusative case and so it is the direct object and Robertus the subject. Changing the cases of the words, however, to Robertem ianua aperit would change the meaning of the sentence: ianua is now in the nominative case and so it is the subject and Robertum the object.

Subject-object-verb

The subject-object-verb (SOV) word order is the one that is used by the greatest number of distinct languages, 45% of them. It is especially common in the theoretical language family that is known as the Altaic language family, which includes many languages such as Japanese, Korean, Mongolian and the Turkic languages.

In Japanese, for example, a simple sentence uses SOV. In other words, the sentence «Robert opens the door» becomes «Robert the door opens». Such languages often use postpositions, which act like prepositions but appear after content words rather than before them, to show the role of a word in the sentence. The sample sentence «Robert opens the door» would be in Japanese ロバートはドアを開ける Robāto-wa doa-o akeru in which は wa as in ロバートは Robāto-wa shows that ロバート Robāto (Robert) is the topic of the sentence, and を o as in ドアを doa-o shows that ドア doa is the direct object of the sentence. Around 45% of all languages are SOV languages.

Verb-subject-object

The verb-subject-object (VSO) word order is the third-most common word order in world languages. There are far fewer VSO languages than SVO and SOV languages, and only 9% of them are VSO. Language groups in which VSO is common include Afroasiatic languages, such as Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic, and Celtic languages, such as Irish, Welsh and Cornish. In VSO languages, «Robert opens the door» would be «Opens Robert the door». Spanish sentences are usually SVO, but VSO is also common. In Spanish, the example above can be as Roberto abre la puerta (Robert opens the door) or Abre Roberto la puerta (Opens Robert the door).

Other types

Aside from SVO, SOV, and VSO, other kinds of word orders are rather uncommon. VOS word order makes up at around 3% of all languages, and languages that begin with the object (OVS and OSV) are extremely few, each around 1-0% percent each.

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Word order Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.