Music can be used to help students memorize the parts of speech. Create a song that defines each part of speech that the student needs to learn. Teach or play the song for the class until the class knows it well. A first- or second-grader will only have noun, verb and adjectives in the song, while a third- and fourth-grader will need to know additional parts, such as adverbs and pronouns. Choose a tune that the students already know or that will be easy for the student to learn. Define each part of speech in the song. A noun is a person place or thing such as a girl, boy, doctor or lawyer. For verb, define it as a word of action or state of being such as sleeping, eating, playing. For an adjective, define it as a word that describes things. The best way to teach the song so that students will remember it is with pictures as well. If the teacher would like to have a ready-made song for her student with visual presentation, JumpStart 2nd Grade has a song for each part of speech with pictures and animation, and can be used as an educational program.
First- and second-graders will need lots of practice with games and activities in order to learn the parts of speech. The N and V game requires that a student first be taught the definitions of a verb and noun. Write words on the board and have a student decide whether it is a noun or verb and hold up his fingers in the shape of an N for noun and a V for verb. A similar game is to give the student a piece of paper with a line going down the middle of the paper. Label the top of one half of the paper Noun and the top of the other half of the paper Verb. Write words on the board and have the students decide whether the word is a noun or a verb and write the word under the correct title on the paper.
Harvard professor Howard Gardner came up with the idea of multiple intelligences, that different students have intelligence in different areas such as spatial, musical, bodily kinesthetic, etc. In order to teach so that every student can learn, it is important to incorporate in the lesson as many types of learning as possible. Teaching the parts of speech through a slide-show presentation is a great way to provide the students with two of the areas of intelligence, spatial and musical. Create a slide show on PowerPoint that includes the definition of the parts of speech with pictures and sound or music. Play the slide show for the students slowly, so that every student will have time to integrate the information. After the presentation, go over the parts of speech with the student so that he can write it down in his notebook.
A third- or fourth-grade student will remember what a verb is after playing this game. Split the class into two teams. Take turns calling up a student from each team and give the student a card with a verb on it to act out. The rest of the class should guess what verb is. The student who guesses the right verb will have to state the verb in a sentence with the help of his team, in order to get the points. Play the game till a certain amount of points are gained.