Grammar for Years 2 to 6: terms, topics and practice papers
A plain guide to the grammar, punctuation and vocabulary in the national curriculum, with a glossary by year, eight topic pages with quizzes, and six original practice papers with mark schemes.
Quick answer
- What
- A glossary of grammar terms, 8 topic guides, 6 practice papers.
- Style
- Plain language, our own examples, and question types like those in the key stage 2 test.
- Cost
- Free. No login.
Where to start
Grammar by year
The national curriculum introduces grammar a little at a time and expects each year to revisit the last. This summary is in our own words.
| Year | New in that year |
|---|---|
| Year 2 | Nouns and noun phrases; suffixes -ness, -er, -ful, -less, -ly; statements, questions, exclamations and commands; past and present tense; commas in lists; apostrophes. |
| Year 3 | Prepositions and conjunctions; word families and prefixes; clauses; the present perfect; inverted commas for direct speech; paragraphs. |
| Year 4 | Determiners and pronouns; fronted adverbials and commas; plural and possessive apostrophes; Standard English verb forms. |
| Year 5 | Relative clauses; modal verbs; brackets, dashes and commas for parenthesis; devices that link ideas; verb prefixes and suffixes. |
| Year 6 | Active and passive; formal and informal language; subject and object; synonyms and antonyms; colons, semi-colons, hyphens and bullet points. |
Questions
What does GPS mean?
Grammar, punctuation and spelling. It is the name of the key stage 2 test, and is often used for the strand as a whole.
Does my child need to learn all the terms?
The curriculum lists the terms pupils should learn each year. Using the correct word for the correct job helps children talk about their writing, which helps them improve it.
Spelling lists and grammar terminology: Department for Education, National curriculum in England: English programmes of study, Appendices 1 and 2 (Crown copyright 2013), reproduced under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Example sentences, tips, explanations and questions are by Litlings.