August 1, 2017

by Maggie Knutson

Lesson plan

Verbs Working Together: Helping and Linking Verbs

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Contents

Grade

Fourth Grade

Subject

View aligned standards

L.4.1

English Language Arts and Reading Grade 3 3.11.D.ii

No standards associated with this content.

English Language Arts Grade 4 4.2.A.3 Grade 5 4.2.A.4

English Year 3 ACELA1477.a Year 5 ACELY1704.e

English Level 3 SL.VCELA272.1 Level 5 W.VCELY329.5

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Learning Objectives

Students will be able to identify helping verbs and linking verbs and use them in a sentence.

Introduction

(5 minutes)

Have students work with a partner or small group to list as many verbs as they can in three minutes. Students will likely list all action verbs and that’s okay.
After three minutes, have the group with the most verbs read theirs aloud.
Now, ask if anyone had any of the following verbs: is, has, does, can, could, must, be, are, have, do, will, would, may, been, am, had, did, shall, should, might, being, was, and were.
Students may be surprised or confused as, most likely, no one will have these verbs.
Explain that these are called helping verbs and linking verbs and that they are often overlooked but are very important.

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

(10 minutes)

Explain that helping verbs allow us to speak with more specificity. They allow us to tell if something is likely to happen or if it should happen.
Give the example: "I do my chores," "I should do my chores," or "I will do my chores." Discuss the difference of these three sentences. Do they mean the same thing? How are they different?
Explain that linking verbs are simply verbs that don’t show action; rather, they show state of being and connect the subject to the predicate. There is no action, the verb provides a status. Give the example: "I am tired," or "She is late."

Guided Practice

(15 minutes)

Distribute the worksheet Helping vs. Linking Verbs.
Review the instructions and do the first six problems together.
Instruct students to work with a peer or in small groups to finish the sheet, composing sentences of their own.
Review the examples that your students have generated.

Independent working time

(20 minutes)

Distribute the worksheet Helping Verbs and Linking Verbs Story.
Review the instructions.
Instruct students to complete the activity.

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Differentiation

Support:

Do a shared writing activity, starting the story as a class. Think through each sentence as you write it together and include helping and linking verbs.
Once you think students have the idea, have them start their own.

Enrichment:

Have students examine an excerpt of text from a book they are reading and identify linking and helping verbs in the story.
Challenge students to write sentences that have both helping and linking verbs.

Assessment

(5 minutes)

Write the sentence on the board: "I was early but I will help clean after the party."
Have students identify the helping and linking verbs.
"Was" is the linking verb and "will" is the helping verb.

Review and closing

(5 minutes)

Discuss: What would our language be like without helping or linking verbs? How would communication be different?

Lesson plan

Verbs Working Together: Helping and Linking Verbs

Learning Objectives

Introduction

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

Guided Practice

Independent working time

Differentiation

Assessment

Review and closing

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Lesson plan

Verbs Working Together: Helping and Linking Verbs

Learning Objectives

Introduction

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

Guided Practice

Independent working time

Differentiation

Assessment

Review and closing

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