What is a preposition?
What is a preposition? Prepositions are amongst the most common words in the English language. While there are only just over 100 prepositions they are used very frequently.
Examples include on, to or on.
Prepositions are used in front of nouns and pronouns to describe their relationship with other words in the sentence.
Prepositions can be positional:
The paper had fallen under the desk.
The girl hid behind the tree.
Prepositions can be time related:
Our journey started at 10.00 AM.
I sat down to relax after I finished my chores.
Prepositions can relate to how you do things:
We went to the restaurant by taxi.
List of common prepositions.
Below is a list of common prepositions.
| about | above | according to | across |
| after | against | along | amid |
| among | around | at | before |
| behind | below | beside | besides |
| between | beyond | by | concerning |
| down | during | except | for |
| from | in | into | like |
| of | off | on | over |
| past | since | through | toward |
| underneath | until | up | upon |
| with | within | without |
When are Prepositions taught in schools?
Prepositions tend to be taught from year three onward. Under the new curriculum, there is a greater focus on this area and by the time they reach year six children will be expected to be able to tell the difference between a preposition and subordinating conjunctions.
Children will be taught to use prepositions in their writing to add detail and accuracy and to aid their descriptions. If children use prepositions well, it can help to bring their written work to life.
How does Learning Street teach the use of prepositions?
We start teaching and encouraging children to use prepositions from year three onward in a structured way as part of our courses.
Developing a good knowledge of prepositions and being able to identify them accurately is now much more important than it used to be because schools have added this into the enhanced SPAG element of the SATS tests children sit at the end of year six.
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