Alphabet
The alphabet is the set of 26 letters we use to write English, from a to z, each with a name, a sound and a capital and lowercase shape.
Learning Wiki
English
Grammar, punctuation, spelling and writing, explained with examples.
Around ages 3–7
First steps
Rhyme
Words rhyme when their ending sounds match, like cat and hat, or light and bite. Rhymes depend on sound, not spelling.
Around ages 5–11
Primary
Capital letters
Use a capital letter at the start of every sentence, for names (proper nouns), for the word I, and at the start of direct speech and most titles.
Full stops
A full stop (called a period in the US) is the dot that ends a sentence that is a statement or a calm command. It tells the reader the idea is finished.
Nouns
A noun is a word that names a person, place, thing or idea, such as teacher, Lagos, pencil or happiness.
Proper nouns
A proper noun is the name of one particular person, place, day, month or thing, like Zainab, Paris or Tuesday. Proper nouns always begin with a capital letter.
Question marks
A question mark (?) goes at the end of a sentence that asks a direct question, like Where are my shoes? It replaces the full stop.
Adjectives
An adjective is a word that describes a noun, telling you what kind, which one or how many, like a huge elephant, a sour lemon or three red balloons.
Plurals
A plural means more than one. Most nouns add -s (cats) or -es (boxes), but some change in other ways, like babies, leaves, mice and children.
Prepositions
A preposition is a word that shows how a noun or pronoun is linked to something else, often by place or time, like in, on, under, behind, before or during.
Verbs
A verb is a word for an action (run, eat, write) or a state of being (is, seem, know). Almost every sentence has one, and verbs change to show tense.
Sentences
A sentence is a group of words that makes complete sense on its own. It starts with a capital letter, ends with a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark, and usually has a verb.
Antonyms
An antonym is a word that means the opposite of another word, like hot and cold, up and down, or happy and unhappy.
Alliteration
Alliteration is when several words close together start with the same sound, like six silly snakes or big brown bear. It makes writing catchy and memorable.
Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is a word that sounds like the noise it describes, such as buzz, splash, sizzle, bang or hiss.
Adverbs
An adverb gives more information about a verb, adjective or another adverb, telling how, when, where or how often, like slowly, tomorrow, outside or always.
Conjunctions
A conjunction is a joining word that links words, phrases or clauses, such as and, but, or, so, because, when, if and although.
Past tense
The past tense is the verb form we use for things that have already happened, like walked, ate or was playing. Regular verbs add -ed; irregular verbs change in other ways.
Present tense
The present tense is the verb form for things happening now, things that are always true, and habits, like I walk, she walks or we are walking.
Pronouns
A pronoun is a word that stands in for a noun so you don't have to repeat it, such as he, she, it, they, we, me, mine or who.
Apostrophes
An apostrophe has two jobs. It shows where letters are missing in a contraction (can't, it's) and shows that something belongs to someone (the dog's bone, the girls' team).
Commas
A comma is a punctuation mark that shows a short pause or separates parts of a sentence, such as items in a list, a fronted adverbial, or extra information.
Homophones
Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings and usually different spellings, like there, their and they're, or see and sea.
Prefixes
A prefix is a group of letters added to the start of a word to change its meaning, like un- in unhappy, re- in replay or dis- in disappear.
Silent letters
Silent letters are letters you write but do not say, like the k in knee, the b in lamb and the w in write. Most of them follow patterns such as kn, wr, mb and gn.
Suffixes
A suffix is a group of letters added to the end of a word to change its meaning or job, like -ful in helpful, -ness in kindness or -ed in jumped.
Synonyms
A synonym is a word that means the same or nearly the same as another word, like big and large, or happy and cheerful.
Determiners
A determiner is a word that comes before a noun to show which one or how many, such as a, an, the, this, those, my, some, every or three.
Inverted commas
Inverted commas, also called speech marks or quotation marks, go around the exact words someone says, like "Come here," said Mum.
Context clues
Context clues are hints in the words around an unfamiliar word that help you work out its meaning, such as a definition, a synonym, an opposite or an example.
Similes
A simile compares one thing to another using like or as, such as as brave as a lion or her eyes shone like stars.
Fact and opinion
A fact is something that can be checked and proved true or false. An opinion is what someone thinks or feels, and other people may disagree.
Inference
Inference means working out something the writer has not said directly, using clues in the text plus what you already know. It is often called reading between the lines.
Paragraphs
A paragraph is a group of sentences about one main idea. Start a new paragraph when the time, place, topic or speaker changes.
Personification
Personification gives human qualities or actions to things that are not human, like The wind howled or The sun smiled down on us.
Summarising
Summarising means retelling the most important ideas of a text briefly, in your own words, leaving out small details and examples.
Fronted adverbials
A fronted adverbial is a word, phrase or clause at the start of a sentence that tells how, when, where or why, followed by a comma, as in Later that night, the owl hooted.
Clauses
A clause is a group of words that contains a verb and usually a subject. A main clause makes sense on its own; a subordinate clause needs a main clause to complete it.
Subject-verb agreement
Subject-verb agreement means the verb matches its subject in number: a singular subject takes a singular verb (The dog barks) and a plural subject takes a plural verb (The dogs bark).
Subordinate clauses
A subordinate clause is a clause that adds extra information to a main clause but cannot stand alone as a sentence, like because it was raining or who lives next door.
Figurative language
Figurative language uses words in a non-literal way to create a picture or feeling, as in similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole and idioms. It's raining cats and dogs is one example.
Metaphors
A metaphor describes something by saying it is something else, without using like or as, such as The classroom was a zoo or Time is a thief.
Persuasive writing
Persuasive writing tries to convince the reader to agree with a view or take an action, using clear reasons, evidence and carefully chosen language.
Modal verbs
Modal verbs (can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would) are helping verbs that add ability, permission, possibility, obligation or advice to a main verb: I can swim.
Relative clauses
A relative clause adds information about a noun and starts with a relative pronoun such as who, which, that, whose, where or when, as in "the girl who won the race".
Greek and Latin roots
Greek and Latin roots are word parts that carry a meaning, like bio (life), graph (write) and port (carry). Knowing them helps you work out words such as biography or transport.
Around ages 11–16
Secondary
Active and passive voice
In the active voice the subject does the action (The dog chased the ball). In the passive voice the subject receives it (The ball was chased by the dog), using be + past participle.
Reported speech (direct and indirect speech)
Direct speech gives someone's exact words in inverted commas. Reported (indirect) speech retells them without quotes, usually moving the verb one tense back, as in she said she was tired.
Semicolons and colons
A semicolon (;) joins two closely related sentences or separates items in a long list. A colon (:) comes after a complete sentence to introduce a list, an explanation or an example.
PEEL paragraphs
A PEEL paragraph builds one argument in four steps: Point, Evidence, Explain, Link. It keeps each paragraph focused on one idea and backs that idea up.
Persuasive techniques
Persuasive techniques are tools writers, speakers and advertisers use to convince an audience, such as rhetorical questions, emotive language, facts, the rule of three and ethos, pathos and logos.
Parallel structure (parallelism)
Parallel structure means putting matching ideas in the same grammatical form, as in I like hiking, swimming and reading, not hiking, swimming and to read.
Rhetorical devices (and ethos, pathos, logos)
Rhetorical devices are techniques used to persuade or move an audience, such as rhetorical questions, anaphora and antithesis. Ethos, pathos and logos are the three appeals behind them.
Thesis statements
A thesis statement is one or two sentences, usually at the end of an essay's introduction, that state the main claim the whole essay will prove, often with the reasons why.
