One of the common mistakes found in English communicators is the incorrect use of articles or absence of articles in sentences. To ensure that your child has a good understanding of articles, you can use learning aids such as English worksheets for nursery students or Class 1 English grammar worksheets.
Now, let’s dive deeper into understanding the usage of articles such as “a”, “an” and “the” in sentences.
‘a’ and ‘an’ are indefinite articles while ‘the’ is a definite article. One of the key rules of articles is to not use articles ‘a’ and ‘an’ with words that cannot be counted or are plural.
Example of an incorrect sentences:
“A water is flowing from the tap.”
“ A books is on the table.”
Using “a” in sentences
The article “a” is used before a consonant sound. There are 21 consonant letters in English.
Here’s an example:
“This is a book.”
Here, the noun ‘book’ needs an article such as ‘a’ for correct sentence formation.
Using “an” in sentences
The article “an” is used before words that begin with a vowel sound. The vowel sounds in English are a, e, i, o and u.
Example of a correct sentence:
“Give me an egg.”
Example of an incorrect sentence:
“Give me a egg.”
Explain the concept to your child. Then, you can give your child worksheets such as English worksheets for Grade 1 or relevant grades to practice usage of articles in English sentences.
Using “the” in sentences
The article “the” is used in sentences where you are talking about a specific thing or person.
For example:
“The boy came running.”
“The bus was late.”
If you use “a” instead of “the” in the sentence, then you are talking about some bus or some boy. The article “the” indicates that you are talking about a specific ‘bus’ or a specific ‘boy’.
Now, if you use “an” in the sentence then the sentence is incorrect. Why? As discussed earlier, “an” is used before words beginning with vowel sounds and “boy” and “bus” are not words beginning with vowel sounds.
To practice articles, you can give your child a few sentence structure worksheets that are designed as per their learning level.
Downloadable English worksheets for kindergarten to Class 2 English grammar worksheets are easily online for your child to practice English grammar.
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