Language and Grammar: Make Comparisons

Pair Comparisons With a partner, talk about your school-day habits or routines. Use present tense verbs. Trade roles. Then compare your habits or routines.

On school days, I get up at 6:00 A.M., but you get up at 7:30. I eat cereal for breakfast, but you eat eggs and toast. We both start school at 8:30.

Writing and Grammar: Write About Events

Study the Models When you write about events that happen regularly or events that happen in the present, use action words that make it clear when things are taking place.

Not Ok

Every day I walk to the beach to watch the fishing boats. I am watching them at the beach now. The boats come in one by one. One boat move very quickly. It doesn’t look familiar to me. There are strange creatures in it. One creature wave at me. Another smile. This is scary, so I run home to warn my family.

This writer doesn’t use action words correctly. The reader thinks: “Is it one boat or more than one boat?”

Ok

Every day I walk to the beach to watch the fishing boats. I am watching them at the beach now. The boats come in one by one. One boat move very quickly. It doesn’t look familiar to me. There are strange creatures in it. One creature wave at me. Another smile. This is scary, so I run home to warn my family.

This writer makes the action clearer.

Add Sentences Think of two sentences to add to the OK model above. Be sure that the action takes place now.

Illustration of the pen icon WRITE ON YOUR OWN Write about your school-day routine and how it compares to your partner’s routine from the Make Comparisons activity above. Choose words that make it clear that your routine happens on a regular basis. Check that your subjects and verbs match.

Remember

Make sure your subjects and verbs agree:

  • • Add -s to the verb if the subject is he, she, it, or a singular noun.

    My partner wakes up at 6:30 A.M.

    Then she eats breakfast.

  • • Add -es if the verb ends in sh, ch, ss, s, x, or z.

    She washes her hair.

  • • Do not add -s or -es if the subject is I, you, we, they, or a plural noun.

    I wake up at 7:00 A.M.