Why Start with Prepositions? I hear you. You have been memorizing prepositions and received a definition for a preposition in the last blog, but you are still wondering, “Why start with prepositions? Why not start with nouns or verbs? I mean a sentence can be a sentence without a preposition, right? So, why start with prepositions?”
I get it. In my far past, I would have never started with prepositions. I had a friend of mine who recommended Easy Grammar. She said, “Oh, it’s great. You start with prepositions…”
Right there, I shut down. I thought, “You do not start with prepositions. Nouns, oh, yes. Verbs, maybe. But, definitely not prepositions.”
Well, I was wrong. Through experience, I discovered that when children—or even adults—start with prepositions they get a better grip on the parts of speech in a sentence in the long run than if they do not start with prepositions. I know it sounds crazy. It may not be true for everyone, but I have often found it to be true with those with whom I have helped.
Basically, if prepositions are known, then people can begin isolating prepositional phrases from the rest of the sentence once they are introduced to nouns and pronouns. Too often people try to take elements from a prepositional phrase and use those components for the main elements of the sentence. The main components of a sentence—such as the subject—are never in a prepositional phrase. Isolating the prepositional phrase from the start helps prevent this huge error.
Therefore, I want to give credit where credit is due. I do not think I would have started with prepositions if I had not tried Easy Grammar by Wanda C. Philipps. Now, English with Mrs. English is not based on Easy Grammar, but it is a delightful grammar book that covers a lot of basic grammar instruction and provides plenty of practice. Sometimes we just need some place to practice something we have learned. Easy Grammar will help with that. Check below for a few links to find Easy Grammar. Of course, you do not have to use those links. I am just trying to be helpful by providing you a place to begin if you would like more practice. If the direct links no longer work at the time you are reading this, then go to a site’s main page and search for the title.
Anyway, there a lot of questions to cover, and the next one is “What is a noun?” If you remember, a preposition has to have an object that is either a noun or a pronoun. So, we are going to begin with nouns in my next blog and YouTube video 0007.
Before you go, please sign up for my newsletter, watch the video below (and subscribe to my YouTube channel), and share this video on social media, which will help me keep these videos going. Thank you for stopping by.
Here are a few places I found Easy Grammar to purchase when I created this blog: Easy Grammar, Rainbow Resources, Christian Books (a/k/a CBD), and Amazon.
Give credit where credit is due. It’s a simple way to say, “Thank you.”
