Language Arts Grade Four

Unit Eighteen, Lesson Two: Subject-Verb Agreement

  1. telephone
  2. pheasant
  3. photograph
  4. metaphor
  5. chlorophyll
  6. wildflowers
  7. lupine
  8. daisy
  9. suflower
  10. survival
  1. seedling
  2. annual
  3. garlic
  4. dairy
  5. petal
  6. gamble
  7. build
  8. speed
  9. stalk
  10. faster
Subject-Verb Agreement

In this lesson we are going to look at subjects and verbs. Consider these sentences: 


  He cooks on weekends.

  They cook on weekends.
In the first sentence the subject is singular and so the verb ends with an -s or -es (providing that it is a regular verb). In the second sentence the subject is plural and so there is no -s or -es at the end of the verb.

When the subject is about more than one noun, do not add -s or -es to the verb. When the subject is about only one noun, add -s or -es to the verb. These two rules apply to regular verbs only. We will discuss irregular verbs after our first exercise, but until then, take a look at these examples: 


1)  The birds (eat/eats) the seed.
	SUBJECT: plural		ANSWER: eat

2)  The mouse (run/runs) on the roof.
	SUBJECT: singular	ANSWER: runs

3)  Jill (eat/eats) her lunch.
	SUBJECT: singular	ANSWER: eats

4)  They (want/wants) to help.
	SUBJECT: plural		ANSWER: want

5)  Jack and Jill (jump/jumps) on the box.
	SUBJECT: plural		ANSWER: jump

Click here to go to next page