4.1b Year 4: choosing nouns or pronouns appropriately for clarity and cohesion and to avoid repetition (pronouns)

This Real Grammar KS2 resources pack provides everything that you need to introduce pronouns to pupils in Year 4. Teaching slides, worksheets, games and an opportunity to apply the new learning in a writing task are all included to teach or to revisit this area of learning.

Pupils will need to be familiar with nouns before completing the activities in this resource pack. A Year 4 Real Grammar resource pack is available if pupils need more support to identify nouns. A further resource pack is available on how nouns and pronouns are used to create cohesion when writing within Year 4 Real Grammar.

Some words can be used as both possessive pronouns and determiners. A separate KS2 resources pack on determiners is also available in Year 4.

What is a pronoun?

Pronouns are words that can be used in a sentence to replace a noun or noun phrase. Examples of pronouns include I, me, my, we, they, yours and ours.

What are the types of pronoun?

There are different types of pronouns that pupils in Key Stage 2 will become familiar with: personal, possessive and relative.

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns are used when referring to people or things already known. Personal pronouns are: I, me, you, he, she, it, we, us, they or them.

Different pronouns are used when writing in the first, second or third person and can be singular or plural.

• I have a new toy. It is the same one that you have.

Possessive pronouns

Possessive pronouns indicate who owns the thing or things in the sentence. Possessive pronouns are: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours or theirs.

• The toy is his.

Take care! The words his, her, your, its, our and their can also be used as possessive determiners which show who owns something. My is also a possessive determiner.

• It is his toy.

In the sentence above, ‘his’ is used as a possessive determiner before a noun. Care must be taken to decide if these words are used as pronouns or determiners. To check, pronouns replace a noun, whereas determiners are used with a noun to create a noun phrase.

Relative pronouns

Relative pronouns (taught in Year 5) are used to introduce a clause giving more information about a noun. That, which, who, whom, whose, where and when are all relative pronouns. Relative pronouns are not included in this Year 4 resource pack.

• The girl who sits next to me in class is great at spelling.

What is included in this resource pack?

This pack is divided into five parts:

TEACH

This section includes PowerPoint teaching slides and teaching notes with an optional script to introduce types of pronouns. It can also be used to revisit this aspect of grammar with pupils.

PRACTISE

An independent activity for pupils to practise using what they have been taught, allowing teachers to assess understanding.

REVISIT

A series of short, 10-minute activities that can be used following the TEACH session to revisit and rehearse what has been taught. These may be short writing tasks, grammar games or editing/proofreading activities.

APPLY

A short writing task where pupils can use the grammar skills taught in context to produce independent writing.

REVISE

Five SATs style test questions, including cloze activities and multiple choice quiz questions, based on the grammar that has been taught.

Teachers can choose which section of the resource pack to use according to their pupils’ needs and could use the activities over a series of lessons or weeks

Teacher notes are provided to show how these quality resources could be used with pupils.

How is this resource pack differentiated?

The PRACTISE and REVISE sections include three activities differentiated for three levels of ability:

• Worksheet 1 for pupils who may need support. Questions will have a lower cognitive domain (what is being asked of pupils) and/or vocabulary used may be simplified where possible.
• Worksheet 2 for pupils working at age related expectations.
• Worksheet 3 for pupils who may need an additional challenge and may be working at a greater depth in this area. Questions will have a higher cognitive domain with more challenging vocabulary.

SUPPORT and CHALLENGE ideas are also included in the teacher notes of each section where relevant, with ideas of how to support pupils working towards the expected standard or at greater depth in this area.

What pupil-facing resources are included?

• TEACH

PPT slides; model text ‘Lost things’; pronouns word mat

• PRACTISE

Practise 1, Practise 2 and Practise 3 worksheets

• REVISIT

Game 1, game 2

• APPLY

Planning sheet

• REVISE

PPT slides; Revise 1, Revise 2 and Revise 3 worksheets

Answer sheets for all worksheets are provided, where appropriate.