Here are a few of the grammar tools available for teachers and students that will make learning to use the English language correctly more enjoyable:
Noredink.com was created by Jeff Scheur, an English teacher at Whitney Young Magnet High School. For now, students can get help with apostrophes, subject-verb agreement, comma issues, sentence fragments, and run-on sentences. He plans to add more features in the future. At present, the site is free.
For students and teachers with iPhones or iPads, there is a free app called Grammar Up. Check the iTunes app store. It would work well as a review for ELL students or anyone who is not a native speaker. I also found several paid apps related to grammar ranging from $.99 to $9.99 that might be worth a look. I have not purchased or tested them.
Grammarly.com is a great place for students to proofread their writing before they turn in papers to the teacher. After they type their papers, they can copy and paste a paragraph at a time and have the text analyzed for over 150 points of grammar, plagiarism, word choice and more. A choice is offered as to the type of paper including general, business, academic, technical, creative or casual. It’s a great way for students to proofread papers before turning them in to the teacher.
If students wish to create flash cards to study for tests, and take quizzes to brush up on their basic skills, funnelbrain.com is a good place to visit. I have written quizzes for funnelbrain.com, and I have found it to be a great place to quickly create flash cards or a quiz that students can take online.
Spellcheckplus.com finds common spelling and grammar errors. Again, the student is to copy and pasts sentences into a box to have his/her writing analyzed. The web site encourages you to become a pro user for a fee, but you can sign up for a free account.
Dictionary.com is a web site every student and teacher will want to bookmark. I keep it in my Chrome bookmarks bar for easy access, and I click on it frequently. Included in the web site absolutely free are: a dictionary, a thesaurus, word games, quotations, a reference desk, and a multilingual translation tool. Just type in a word or a phrase and it will appear in another language. Amazing!
Of course, the best grammar tool of all is always the teacher. You can prepare your own customized printable handout. It could include lists of common prepositions, linking verbs, helping verbs, adverbs that interrupt verbs, questions that adjectives and adverbs answer, conjunctions, relative pronouns, and any other list to which students would need to refer as they learn to analyze sentences.
I gave my students a Sentence Analysis Map that my students affectionately referred to as SAM. SAM is a one-page (front and back) study guide that contains all 8 steps in my Simple Steps to Sentence Sense program, and all the notes that students would otherwise have to copy into their notebooks. I always allowed them to use the SAM sheet on worksheets and on tests. You can prepare a study sheet of your own, or you can download mine from TeachersPayTeachers.com.
Here are some of my products on TeachersPayTeachers.com
Sentence Analysis Map $5
Simple Steps to Sentence Sense for High School $25.
And here’s a Free Product for you. . .
Have a great day,
