Syntax and Pronouns
December 22nd, 2022 | Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist
An outstanding fourth grade teacher posted in one of my favorite Facebook groups posted a question regarding syntax and pronouns. She asked how to get students to recognize pronouns and their antecedents to improve reading comprehension. Excellent question!
My response: You’re doing great work to recognize the role of syntax in limiting comprehension (specifically pronoun issues). We teachers, following SOR, are now doing fine with word recognition, but not so great with the other side of the rope. However, research indicates the latter is critically important. According to J.F. Greene (2011)…
“Inadequate ability to process the syntax of language results in the inability to understand what is heard, as well as what is read. Beyond word knowledge, it is the single most powerful deterrent to listening and reading comprehension”
Suffice it to say that syntax is a key component of language comprehension development and that explicit, well-planned instruction will improve comprehension and writing sophistication.
What does not work is the haphazard mini-lesson approach or daily editing/DOL/bell ringers.
What does seem to work is an emphasis on sentence components (parts of speech, phrases, and clauses). I use this five step approach:
- Learn It! (the syntactic content and examples)
- Identify It! (a short practice section)
- Explain It! (analysis of challenging sentences featuring the syntactic focus)
- Revise It! (kernel sentences, sentence expansion, syntactic manipulation)
- Create It! (Short writing application with the syntactic focus in different genre) in my Language Comprehension program for grade 4-adult.
Here are four ten-minute lessons following these five steps on pronouns as a part of speech. More on pronoun antecedents, vague pronouns, misplaced pronouns, pronoun antecedent at the phrase and clause levels in the program. Pronoun Examples
If you’re serious about improving language comprehension, check out my Language Comprehension component of The Science of Reading Intervention Program if the instructional activities make sense for your grades 4-adult instruction in reading and writing:
Language Comprehension