Language, 11–13 years — 21 topics · MyLeoNes™ Kuks
21 language topics written for 11–13 years — not a older text simplified. In teaching order, each a deck of five cards: the idea, why it exists, a worked example, the common trap and where you meet it.
Language · 11–13 years
A paragraph holds one main idea
Learn how a paragraph keeps several sentences working together instead of becoming a loose pile of facts.
A summary keeps the important meaning
Summarising means making a text shorter without changing its main message. You keep what a reader needs and leave out details that do not carry the point.
Active and passive voice
The same event can be described by focusing on the doer or on what was affected.
Adding detail with relative clauses
Relative clauses add useful information about a person, thing or place without starting a completely separate sentence.
Building words from smaller parts
Roots, prefixes and suffixes help you work out how words are related and what unfamiliar words may mean.
Claims need evidence
Learn to separate what someone says from the evidence that makes it believable.
Commas mark boundaries
Learn one useful comma idea: it can show how parts of a sentence fit together, but it is not simply a mark for every breath.
Homophones: same sound, different word
Some words sound alike but have different spellings and meanings. Learning to tell them apart makes writing clearer.
Idioms are phrases with a shared meaning
Some phrases cannot be understood by adding up each word. Their meaning comes from how a language community uses the whole expression.
Language changes with audience
Learn how the same message can need different words and levels of formality for a friend, a teacher or a public audience.
Linking words show relationships
Words such as because, however and therefore tell readers how one idea connects to the next.
Meaning changes with context
Learn why the same word or sentence can mean different things in different situations.
Metaphors make ideas visible
Understand how a metaphor links one thing to another to create a strong picture or feeling.
Modal verbs show strength
Words such as may, must and should tell us how certain, necessary or allowed something is. Small changes can change the force of a message.
Pronouns need a clear target
Learn how words such as he, it and they point back to something, and how to stop readers guessing.
Quoting and reporting speech
Language lets us show someone’s exact words or explain their message in our own sentence.
Rhetorical questions guide attention
A question does not always ask for an answer. Sometimes a speaker asks one to make us think, agree or notice a particular point.
Subjects and verbs must agree
A sentence becomes easier to follow when its subject and verb match in number and person.
The core of a sentence
See how a sentence is built around who or what acts and what happens.
The feeling carried by a word
Words can point to the same basic thing while suggesting approval, disapproval or a particular attitude.
Verb tenses place actions in time
Verb forms help readers tell whether something happened, is happening or is expected to happen.
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