3.7 Explicitly Teach the "How Many," "What Kind," and "Which One": Adjectives

The next building block we teach is adjectives. You'll most likely have learned about adjectives as words that describe a noun. With a function-first approach, you'll frame that same concept a little differently for your students. 

The function, or job, of an adjective is to tell more about the who or the what (nouns). Look at this sentence about a kite:

The red kite soared.

The word red tells us what kind of kite … a red one. Red is our adjective.

We explicitly teach students about adjectives with a function-first approach by asking questions.

Adjectives answer these questions about the who or the what (the noun): 

For example, imagine a student reads this sentence:

Ten tall cacti with prickly spines grew in the desert.

You can help them identify the adjectives by asking these questions:

How many cacti? — ten
What kind of cacti? — tall
Which cacti? — the ones with prickly spines

Recognizing words, phrases, and clauses that describe the who or what helps our students understand what they read. The table below shows the functions, or jobs, that adjectives have:

The goal of the function questions is to understand more about the who or the what (the subject of the sentence, always a noun). We are providing students with a pathway to unlock meaning. 

While what kind and which one can be confusing to distinguish (The red kind? The red one?), the purpose is to understand that you're gathering more detail about the who or the what. It's less important to know the exact question a word is answering.

Reading phrases that answer these who or what expansion questions also helps students to read with expression and comprehend. These questions help readers identify groups of words that work together to describe a noun (Which one? The one with prickly spines!) 

As students increase their grammatical awareness of phrases, fluent reading improves. They are developing an understanding of how language is structured. This helps students to avoid reading word-by-word and read in meaningful chunks, an essential component of fluent reading. In this section, we'll help you use the teaching strategy Scooping for Meaning, a way to teach students to recognize meaningful groups of words in sentences and connected text.

Before you teach this model lesson, you'll want to download these free function question cards.

In this section, we will give you examples of how to teach each of the three questions for identifying adjectives in sentences: "How many?", "What kind?", and "Which one?" Depending upon your students, you may start by introducing one or two questions at a time. You can decide which would be best to start with!

Students say,

The second one.

Bring out your three adjective question cards:

Say,

Good writers tell us more about the who or what in a sentence. They do that by adding words and phrases that answer the questions "How many?", "What kind?", and "Which one?" about the who or the what.

Write this sentence on the board:

Two white ducks with soft feathers swam.

Say,

If I ask myself, "Who or what is the sentence about?", I would say ducks. 

The ducks did what? Swam.

Now I can ask, "How many ducks?" And I know the answer is two.

I can ask, "What kind of ducks?" And I find the answer is white ducks.

Finally I ask, "Which ducks?" And the answer is the ones with soft feathers.

All of the answers tell me more about the ducks. 

Let's listen for the words that tell us more information about the who or the what by answering these questions.

Show students the "What kind?" card.

Say,

Words that answer the question "What kind?" tell us things we can observe about a who or a what. For example, what kind words can tell us about the size of something, like the words big or tiny. They're words that can tell us about color, like the words green or pink. And they can tell us about texture, like the words prickly or smooth. Let's look at this next sentence and figure out what word answers the question "What kind?"

Write this sentence on the board:

The big dogs barked.

Say,

Let's read this sentence together:

You all read,

The big dogs barked.

Say,

If I ask the question "What kind of dogs barked?", we would say, "Big."

Show students the "How many?" card.

Say,

Words that answer "How many?" tell us a specific number, like three, or a general number, like some or a bunch. Listen to this sentence for the word that tells "How many?"

Write this sentence on the board:

Three dogs barked.

Say,

Let's read this sentence together: 

You all read,

Three dogs barked.

Say,

If I ask the question "How many dogs barked?",  we would say, "Three."

Show students the "Which one?" card.

Say,

Words that answer "Which one?" can tell us one who or what from another. We can use a word like this or those: I prefer this plant. "Which plant?" This plant. The word this tells you which plant I prefer. The word this answers the question, "Which one?"

We also might use a phrase after the who or what to tell which one we mean. Let's look at this sentence and figure out what phrase tells us the answer to the question "Which one?"

Write this sentence on the board:

The dogs with wagging tails barked.

Say,

Let's read this sentence together:

You all read,

The dogs with wagging tails barked.

Say,

If I ask the question "Which dogs?", we would say, "The ones with wagging tails."

The words and phrases that answer these questions, "What kind?", "How many?", and "Which one?" are called adjectives.

Think about this next part as the We Do section of your lesson. 

Write this sentence on the board:

Prickly cacti grew.

Say,

Let's read this sentence together:

You all read,

Prickly cacti grew.

Say,

What kind of cacti grew?

Students say,

Prickly.

Show your "What kind?" card.

Say,

The word prickly tells us what kind of cacti.

Write this sentence on the board:

Three cacti grew.

Say,

Let's read this sentence together:

You all read,

Three cacti grew.

Say,

How many cacti grew?

Students say,

Three.

Show your "How many?" card.

Say,

Yes! The word three tells us how many.

Write this sentence on the board:

Those cacti grew.

Say,

Let's read this sentence together: 

You all read,

Those cacti grew.

Say,

Which cacti?

Students say,

Those.

Show your "Which one?" card.

Say,

That's right. The word those tells us which one.

Underline the adjectives in your three sentences on the board:

Prickly cacti grew.
Three cacti grew.
Those cacti grew.

Say,

The words prickly, three, and those are our adjectives. They tell us more about the who or the what.

As with the other grammatical building blocks, your students may grasp the concept of adjectives after a single lesson, or it may take more time and more guided practice.

When your students show they understand adjectives in the We Do section, you can move on to the You Do section. 

You can use your dictation time during your phonics block to reinforce this learning. This requires some intentional planning! 

Let's say you're teaching magic 'e'. You'll want to draft a group of phrases with the same noun but different adjectives, being careful to write adjectives that address the three adjective function questions:  "How many?", "What kind?", and "Which one?"

Your planning might look like this:

How many?
ten snakes
most snakes

What kind?
a red snake
the big snake

Which one?
that snake
those snakes

When you are dictating phrases, we recommend following this predictable routine:

1. Say one phrase and have students repeat it.
2. Students write the phrase.
3. Teacher and students check spelling together.

Repeat this routine with each phrase. After all phrases have been dictated, you'll ask your students to read each phrase together. This is when you'll bring in your work on adjectives.

Once the children have written their first phrase, for example:

ten snakes

You'll ask,

Who or what is this phrase about?

Students reply,

Snakes.

Say, 

What word tells us how many snakes there are?

Students say,

Ten.

After the children read the next phrase in their dictation:

most snakes

You'll ask,

In this phrase, what word tells us how many snakes there are?

Students say,

Most.

You'll continue on through all the phrases. For children who struggle to catch on, you might consider addressing just one kind of question per lesson, spreading the work out over multiple days.

This kind of integrated practice allows you to embed grammar into different parts of the day, helping students deepen their comprehension skills.