Fronted Adverbials and Commas

PROCEDURAL

English›Grammar & Punctuation|Ages 8—9|ID: mt_0QJoKWABdC

Use fronted adverbials to vary sentence openings and punctuate them with commas

Mastery Evidence

Write a sentence beginning with a time adverbial, e.g. 'Later that day, the children ran home'
Rewrite 'The fox crept through the garden at midnight' with the adverbial fronted and a comma placed correctly
Identify and correct a missing comma after a fronted adverbial in 'Before breakfast she packed her bag'

Assessment Prompt

“When [child] writes a story or a report, do they sometimes start a sentence with a phrase like "After lunch," or "Quietly, the fox moved closer," — and put a comma after that opening phrase?”

Prerequisites2

Commas in lists
softAges 6—11
Expressing Time, Place and Cause
hardAges 7—8

Show full prerequisite tree

Commas in lists soft
Comma after fronted adverbial extends comma usage introduced for lists
- Building sentences soft
  Understanding sentences supports knowing where to place commas
- Starting and Ending Sentences hard
  Must know basic punctuation before learning comma usage
  - Building sentences hard
    Must understand sentences before punctuating them
Expressing Time, Place and Cause hard
Fronted adverbials build on understanding conjunctions, adverbs, and prepositions to express time and cause
- Prepositions hard
  Using prepositions for time/cause builds on Y1 prepositions
  - Listening and responding soft
    Listening and responding supports learning prepositions
- Subordinate clauses hard
  Time/cause conjunctions extend Y2 subordination/co-ordination
  - Listening and responding soft
    Listening skills support understanding complex sentence structures
  - Building sentences hard
    Must understand sentences before combining clauses
  - Four Types of Sentences soft
    Understanding sentence types supports creating complex sentences
    - Building sentences hard
      Must understand what a sentence is before learning sentence types
    - Starting and Ending Sentences hard
      Must know basic sentence punctuation before varying it by type
      - Building sentences hard
        Must understand sentences before punctuating them
  - Joining Words with 'And' hard
    Must be able to join with 'and' before learning subordination and other co-ordinating conjunctions
    - Building sentences hard
      Must understand sentences before joining them

Unlocks4

Commas After Introductory Elements
hardAges 10—11
Expanded noun phrases (age 9+)
softAges 9—10
Linking paragraphs with adverbials
softAges 9—11
Commas to avoid ambiguity
softAges 9—10