How to Identify the Subject and Predicate of a Sentence

Khan Academy

A lighthearted and clear introduction to the fundamental components of a sentence: the subject and the predicate. Through playful banter and humorous examples involving "goblin hats," the narrators break down sentence structure into easily digestible parts using analogies and visual aids. The video explicitly defines subjects as the actors and predicates as the actions (or states of being) plus their related details. The video covers key grammatical concepts including nouns, pronouns, action verbs, and state-of-being verbs. It specifically addresses the nuance that verbs aren't always physical actions (using the example "I am happy") and clarifies the common misconception that any noun in a sentence might be the subject. This resource is highly valuable for elementary and middle school language arts classrooms. It provides a non-intimidating entry point for sentence analysis, offering teachers a concrete metaphor (the car analogy) and a memorable catchphrase for predicates ("the verb and its pals"). It helps students move beyond guessing to systematically identifying sentence parts.