Subject Verb Agreement

Topic: Subject Verb Agreement

Objectives & Outcomes

• Students will be able to identify and correctly use verbs in a sentence.
• Students will be able to determine if a verb in a sentence is agreeing with its subject in number (i.e. singular or plural).

Materials

• Pencils and paper for each student
• Examples of sentences with incorrect subject-verb agreement (e.g. "The dog is running" instead of "Dogs are running" or "The cat is sleeping" instead of "Cats are sleeping")

Warm-Up

• Review the concept of nouns and their declensions. Nouns can be singular or plural, and can be masculine, feminine or neutral. Ask students to provide examples of each.
• Next, introduce the concept of verbs and their tenses. Verbs can be in the present tense, past tense or future tense. Ask students to provide examples of each.
• Finally, introduce the concept of subject verb agreement and explain that a verb must match its subject in number (i.e. singular or plural).

Direct Instruction

• Review the past participle of regular verbs. This is the -ed form of the verb that is used in the past tense.
• Introduce the irregular past participles of common irregular verbs. This is the -d or -ed form of the verb that is used in the past tense and does not follow the usual pattern of -ed forms.
• Review the subject verb agreement rules. A verb must match its subject in number (i.e. singular or plural).

Guided Practice:

• Have students work in pairs. Give each pair a set of sentence strips with irregular past participle verbs and a set of sentence strips with regular past participle verbs.
• Have students match the past participle verb to its subject and then create a sentence with a correctly matched verb and subject.

Independent Practice:

• For independent practice, have students choose two irregular past participle verbs and create a short passage using both verbs in a sentence. They should use context clues and their knowledge of verb tenses to determine the correct verb tense and subject pronoun to use.

Closure:

• Review the instructions for creating a past participle verb and the rules for subject verb agreement with the students.
• Ask students to share their past participle verb sentences with the class.

Assessment:

• Observe students during the guided practice activity and make note of any errors or confusion.
• Collect and assess the completed past participle verb sentences.