Systematic and Explicit Instruction on Using Adverbs in Complete Sentences

Nov 14, 2023

3 min read

What are Adverbs?

Adverbs add information to verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs to tell about how, when, where, or to what degree an action or quality occurs. Adverbs are similar to prepositions because they can tell where and when an action happens. Adverbs do other jobs too. In fact, adverbs do so many jobs, it will take several lessons to teach them to your students.

Adverbs tell how an action is done. These adverbs often end in -ly, but don’t always. For example, she yelled loudly.
Adverbs tell when an action is done. In general, adverbs are one or two words that stand alone. Prepositions that tell when an action is done are a part of phrases. It is not important for your students to distinguish between adverbs and prepositions in order to write with them. For example, we will go to the zoo tomorrow.
Adverbs tell where an action is done. For example, the dog is outside. Again, students may have trouble distinguishing adverbs from prepositions, but it is not important for beginning and intermediate writers to know the difference.
Adverbs tell how often an action is done. For example, we go to school every day.
Adverbs tell how much an action is done, or how much of an action is completed. For example, he barely slept last night.
Adverbs add information to adjectives to tell how much of the quality the noun has. For example, the park was very fun.
Adverbs add information to other adverbs that describe verbs. For example, she sang very loudly.
Adverbs tell how likely an event is or how certain someone is about something. For example, we will probably go home after the game.

Here is a video to help your students understand adverbs. You will want to show the video a little at a time as you teach each job of adverbs.

Example Sentences

After introducing adverbs to your students, you will want to show them examples. When looking at example sentences, point out the capitalized first letter, spacing between words, and ending punctuation. Speaking of ending punctuation. I recommend sticking with periods until you can give a lesson on the other types of ending punctuation.

Adverbs that Tell How

Adverbs that Tell Where

Adverbs that Tell When

Adverbs that Tell How Often

Adverbs that Tell How Much

Adverbs that Describe Adjectives

Adverbs that Describe Adverbs

This should be a quick part of the lesson. You can ask students what they notice but quickly point out the important parts of the sentence. In these sentences, you want students to notice what the adverbs are doing in each sentence. For the adverbs that are telling when and where, you can point out how they are different from prepositions. For the adverbs that describe adjectives and adverbs, you might have to talk about what the vocabulary means.

Adverbs Pictures

You can show these pictures to your students to help them brainstorm adverbs. There are 20 total pictures to use over the course of all of your adverb lessons. Give students about thirty seconds to think about each picture. Then, have them share with a partner. Finally, collect three to five ideas per picture to record in a class anchor chart.

Printable Resources

These ideas will get you started teaching your adverb lessons, but we have printable resources that will make a huge difference. Luckily, my team at For the Love has you covered! You can get all of these resources to make planning and teaching a breeze!

Word List: A list of words for the lesson for when your mind goes blank while brainstorming.

Word Chart: A tool for students to organize words they will use to write sentences. Students record words from brainstorming on their word charts, so when they write sentences, they can focus their attention on the mechanics and syntax of the sentence instead of coming up with new ideas. Word charts are the perfect place to integrate social studies and science lessons into writing.

Example Sentences: A list of example sentences that fit the purpose of the lesson. You can use these to build anchor charts, differentiate instruction or practice for students, or clarify your own understanding of the topic.

Sentence Practice: Students will use the words from their word charts to write complete sentences. The sentence practice pages have more suggestion words as well as reminders about the mechanics of a complete sentence. Students who do not need the support of the handwriting lines can write on a piece of notebook paper, or you can give them the alternate writing paper. It does not have the specific lesson information on it.