Wales Primary SchoolEnglish Help Page
Spellings Used On Previous SAT Papers
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What's the difference between
a hyphen and a dash?
Hyphens are shorter than dashes, and link two words so the word or phrase makes sense.
Dashes separate information and are a type of parenthesis, like brackets.
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Elipses
An ellipsis, or ellipses in the plural form, is a punctuation mark of three dots (. . .) that shows an omission of words, represents a pause, or suggests there's something left unsaid.
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Colons and Semi-Colons
Active and Passive Voice
Subject – person or thing that does the action.
Verb – an action or state of being.
Object – person or thing that the action is done to.
Link to video about Active and Passive Voice
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Subjunctive Form
The subjunctive is a verb form or mood used to express things that could or should happen. It is used to express wishes, hopes, commands, demands or suggestions.
When using the subjunctive form, sentences are written with formality. For example. . .
I urge that she be there promptly.
I recommend that she purchase a new ceiling fan.
If I were you, I would ensure that the task was completed on time.
Link to subjunctive form video
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Inverted Commas
There are four key things to remember.
1. Speech inside inverted commas starts with a capital letter.
“Don’t forget your letter: it’s important!” said the postman.
2. Always put punctuation inside inverted commas
This is usually a comma (when a reporting clause follows the speech) but not always.
“Oh, crumbs! I almost forgot to put the punctuation inside,” sighed Megan.
“What a forgetful person you are!” chuckled Toby.
3. Don’t capitalise the first letter of the reporting clause unless it is needed.
“Priya wants to go to the park now,” reported Jakub.
“I want someone to push me on the swings,” Priya declared.
4. Put a full stop at the end of your reporting clause.
The end of the reporting clause is usually the end of the sentence so needs a full stop.
If your reporting clause comes before the speech, put a comma after it instead.
“Olu, stop feeding the goats grapes,” Dad called out.
Olu replied, “They stole the bag off me — I can’t get it back.”
Link To BBC Inverted Commas Page
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Prepositions
Prepositions are linking words in a sentence. We use prepositions to explain where things are in time or space. Prepositions tell us where something is (for example, beside, under, on, against, beneath or over) or when something is happening (for example: until, during, after, before or more specifically 'on Christmas Day', 'at twelve o'clock' or 'in August').
Prepositions usually sit before nouns, or pronouns, to show the noun's, or pronoun's, relationship to another word in the sentence.
Link to BBC video about prepositions
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Determiners
A determiner is a word that comes before a noun and identifies that noun in further detail.
A determiner tells you if it is a general thing or a specific thing.
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Tenses
A verb tense tells us when the action or state described by the verb happened. The three main verb tenses in English are the present, the past, and the future.
The present tense is made up of. . .
- simple present / present simple
- present continuous / present progressive
- present perfect
The past tense is made up of. . .
- simple past / past simple
- past continuous / past progressive
- past perfect
The future tense is made up of. . .
- simple future / future simple
- future continuous / future progressive
- future perfect
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Pronouns
Pronouns are words which can replace nouns. There are many types of pronoun: personal, possessive and relative.
- Personal pronouns are words which can be used instead of a person, place or thing.
- Possessive pronouns are words which show ownership.
- Relative pronouns are words which introduce a relative clause.
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Relative Clauses
A relative clause is a specific type of subordinate clause that adapts, describes or modifies a noun.
Relative clauses add information to sentences by using a relative pronoun such as who, which or that.
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Expanded Noun Phrases
Reading Domains
