Houghton Mifflin Reading
This page is under construction and will have general grammar help (the eight parts of speech, basic sentence structure, and how punctuation relates to grammar), but follow the links above to get specific information about the grammar being taught in fifth grade.
Parts of Speech
There are eight parts of speech in English: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, and interjections.
A mnemonic to help you remember the parts of speech is IVAN CAPP:
Interjections
Verbs
Adjectives
Nouns
Conjunctions
Adverbs
Pronouns
Prepositions
Nouns
A noun is a word that names a person, a place, a thing, or an idea. Nouns can be common or proper, singular or plural. There are also possessive nouns and gerunds, nouns that can look like verbs.
person - Mr. Walker, teacher, man, Stewie Griffin
place - school, San Francisco, Germany, cemetery
thing - thing, pencil, clock, Oreo cookie
idea - inspiration, emotion, dream, imagination
Common Nouns
A common noun is a word that names any person, place, thing, or idea. A common noun begins with a lowercase letter.
person - boy, girl, sister
place - school, cemetery, park, road
thing - pencil, clock, desk
idea - inspiration, emotion, dream, imagination
Proper Nouns
A proper noun tells the specific name of a person, place, or thing. Words that name people, places, things, titles, holidays, days of the week, and months of the year are proper nouns. Proper nouns are always capitalized. Note: seasons, like summer, winter, etc. are not capitalized.
person - Mr. Walker, Stewie Griffin, Harriet Tubman
place - San Francisco, Germany, Lafayette Elementary School
thing - Barbie, Game Boy, Easter, Tuesday, July
Possessive Nouns
A possessive noun is a noun that shows ownership. An apostrophe or an apostrophe and s are added to show possession. Another noun will come after the possessive noun showing the thing that is the possession.
examples: Camilia's notebook, the teacher's marker, the girls' donuts
Singular Nouns
Nouns can be singular or plural. Singular nouns signify just one person, place, or thing.
examples: cat, car, man, Twinkie, girl
Plural Nouns
Nouns can be singular or plural. Plural nouns signify two or more people, places, or things.
examples: donuts, sheep, lamps, papers, girls
Suffixes That Designate Nouns
This is not an exhaustive list, but one that my students generated one day. These suffixes indicate that the word is a noun.
-tion, -ion, -er, -or, -ian, -ness, -ship, -ity, -dom, and sometimes -ing
Gerunds
Words that describe activities that end in -ing are gerunds. They look like verbs, but are actually nouns.
examples: Talking is fun. Cooking is hard. Reading is good. Swimming is a sport.
