Summary and Quiz on Subject and Object Pronouns

Click on the link below to see a summary of the difference between subject and object pronouns. Then test your ability to use them correctly by taking the quiz that follows the explanation.

LINK: Subject and Object Pronouns at efl.net

Practice Map-Reading Skills While Relaxing!

Do maps on the TABE reading tests scare you? Maybe you haven't spent a lot of time looking at different kinds of maps or studying how to interpret them. However, here is a fun and relaxing way to get used to working with maps and answering questions about what they show.
 

My suggestion: Do you like to color? Some adults get out colored pencils and color their own pictures while their children play with crayons and coloring books. It's very relaxing, and your kids may even want to join you. If you click on the link below, you will see many images that can help you practice reading and understanding maps, keys (legends), and distance scales. Click on a few map pictures and study them, or print them out, get some colored pencils, and try doing the activities and answering the questions. I have lots of colored pencils in my classroom in you want to try it!

LINK: Click on this link to print a map activity sheet or view it online

Below are some examples of map learning activities you will see when you click on the link above:

Reading Skills Practice: Strategies for Better Reading

Reading tests have a time limit. They try to find out whether you read English well enough to quickly understand the meaning, of what you read. We call this skill reading comprehension (comprehension means understanding). To read well, you have to improve your vocabulary, but you also have to work on other reading skills: inferring, predicting, and identifying the main idea.

If you read well enough to understand what the author intends, you should be able to draw conclusions about what you are reading, or to predict what will probably happen next. Sometimes we call this skill "reading between the lines," or inference. To infer means to use what the author directly says to conclude or predict something that he author doesn't actually state.

My suggestion: Click on the link below to practice inferring, predicting, and identifying the main idea.

LINK: Strategies for Better Reading: Understanding, Predicting, Inferring 

Here is a sample question from this activity:

Making Inferences

Making inferences is an important reading skill. An inference is a guess you make based on what is stated and on logic. An inference isn't something that is stated directly in what you read. You have to make a logical guess or conclusion that isn't stated based on information that is stated in what you read. Here's an example from the quiz below:

     Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair. (Why would someone give this advice?)

My suggestion: Click on the link below to take a quick quiz on making inferences based on advice given by children. You have to infer the reason for the advice.

LINK: Quiz on Making Inferences

Another way to study grammar--Animations (cartoons)!

Here is a link to ESL Blues, a website that offers a lot of lessons and quizzes (at different levels) for people studying English:

ESL Blues

 It also teaches grammar lessons by animations. An animation is a drawing or picture that seems to move. We watch animated tv shows called cartoons. We also see animation in computer games and in videos. Turning a positive statement into a question or into a negative statement requires changing the normal English word order, adding a helping verb or negative word, and/or changing the tense of the main verb. For example: He walked yesterday. Did he walk yesterday?He did not walk yesterday. 

Animation lets you watch the words in a sentence move around as these changes occur. Seeing words float into and out of a sentence is another way to help you remember the changes that occur when we make a positive statement into a negative statement or a question.

My suggestion: Click on the "ESL Blues" link above. After the page loads, look at the Alphabetical Index on the left side. Click on Animated Grammar Tutorials and then choose some of the links to watch. Or just use the links below to watch two of these "anigrams" (the ESL Blues website's name for these animated videos):

Past Tense: Negative Forms
Past Tense: Yes/No Questions 

PRACTICE SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT IN THE PRESENT TENSE

Click the links below to practice verbs in the simple present tense:

LINK: Subject-verb agreement

LINK: Simple present, 3rd person singular practice

LINK: More simple present tense exercises

Reading Skill Practice: Summarizing and Finding the Main Idea

Finding the main idea in what you read takes practice. You have to learn to tell the difference between main idea statements and detail statements. You often have to recognize a summary (a brief statement of what the reading is mainly about) or a paraphrase (a statement that says the same thing, but with different words). You also have to learn to group details into categories by identifying what they have in common. Seeing what statements have in common helps you to identify the main idea of what you are reading, or to summarize it with different words..

My suggestion: Click on the link below to learn how to summarize and how to tell the difference between the main idea and the details that support the main idea.

LINK: Finding the Main Idea and Summarizing