Identifying Helping Verbs and Adverbs in Sentences

GrammarSongs by Melissa

This educational video provides an advanced grammar lesson focused on distinguishing between helping verbs and adverbs within sentences. Building upon foundational knowledge of action and linking verbs, the narrator addresses a common point of confusion: identifying the function of words that appear between a subject and a main verb. The video introduces a clear, four-step process to analyze sentences, helping students determine whether a word is a helping verb (indicating time, tense, mood, or tone) or an adverb (indicating how, where, or when). The video uses a whiteboard animation style with engaging characters—including a penguin detective, a cleaning boy named Sam, and a wicked queen—to visually demonstrate sentence analysis. Through three distinct examples, the narrator models the thought process of finding the subject, locating the main verb, isolating the words in between, and testing those words to classify them correctly. The lesson specifically tackles tricky sentence structures where adverbs like "neatly," "deliciously," and "never" interrupt the verb phrase. For educators, this resource is an excellent tool for deepening students' understanding of sentence structure and parts of speech. It moves beyond simple identification to analysis, encouraging critical thinking about how words function in context. The clear, step-by-step methodology provides a replicable strategy that students can apply to their own writing and grammar exercises, making it perfect for upper elementary students mastering more complex sentence construction.