Richbaub's Introduction to Middle School Grammar Book 1

Chapter 1
Getting a Foothold: Prepositions,
Nouns, & Pronouns
1.1 – Prepositions & Prepositional Phrases
Prepositions and prepositional phrases are everywhere! Knowing about them will help you immensely when
analyzing the parts of a sentence. A good understanding of prepositional phrases will also help advance your
writing skills because there are comma and pronoun usage rules associated with prepositional phrases. In addition,
advanced writing concepts like agreement, sentence variety, and parallel structure are easier to understand when
you know about prepositional phrases. Are you ready? Let’s go!
A. Prepositions are words that begin little phrases that describe something’s or someone’s
location in space or time (in the cupboard, with Janie, above the house, after the movie). These
little phrases are called prepositional phrases.
B. You will need to memorize a list of prepositions.
C. Here is a list of 40 of the most commonly used prepositions:
about
above
across
after
against
along
around
at
before
behind
below
beneath
beside
between
beyond
by
down
during
for
from
in
in front of
inside
instead of
into
near
next to
of
off
on
out
over
through
to
toward
under
until
up
with
without
D. The best strategies for memorizing the prepositions:
1. Break It Up – Try memorizing in stages by learning 10 (one column) at a time. Once
you can recite the first column’s prepositions in order, memorize the second column.
Then recite both columns in order. Etc.
RICHBAUB’S INTRODUCTION TO MIDDLE SCHOOL GRAMMAR, BOOK 1
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