Sentence Diagram - How to structure a Simple Sentence Diagram

In my last post " Ten simple strategies to boost your child's memory",  you might have come across Sentence Diagram as one of the technique to help teach kids English grammar. There are many websites and books that explains Sentence diagram in detail. But, in this post, I will be sharing some easy tips and techniques of sentence diagramming with my own sketches.

What is a Sentence Diagram?
A sentence diagram is a picture of how the parts of a sentence fit together. It shows how the words in the sentence are related to each other. Sentence diagramming will help children with different learning styles and make them understand tedious concepts of English grammar in a more sensible way.

How to structure a Sentence Diagram
We all know that a simple sentence in an English language will always have a subject and a predicate. The subject mainly has a noun or a pronoun. The predicate tells what the subject does and will consists of a verb and an object. And  this will be represented by a horizontal line (base line) separated by a vertical line. A short vertical line is used to separate the direct object from the verb.

For example:
Ajay ate.  
Ajay ate mangoes.

When more details are added to the simple sentence, it becomes lengthier and complex in look. It might include word functions like nouns, adjectives, adverbs, auxiliary verbs, compound words and even words that questions where, what, when, why and how.

Adjectives and Adverbs:
A slanted line will represent both adjectives and adverbs below the words they modify. When an adverb modifies an adjective or another adverb, it is placed on a line connected to the word it modifies.

For example
Ajay ate ripe mangoes. 
Ajay ate ripe mangoes quickly

Indirect object sentence diagramming:
We can expand the sentence to contain an indirect object which should be written on a short horizontal line below the verb and connect it by a slanted line.

For example,
Ajay gave his friends fresh mangoes.
The parents gave their children some presents.
The parents gave them some presents.

Compound Sentence Diagramming:
A compound sentence can have two or more subjects, verbs or objects. And they are separated by a dotted line.

For example,
Sid and Kirthik love football.
Vidula and Ishya made cakes and ate them.

Advantages of Sentence Diagram

• Helps to understand and identify the logical relationships between different parts of the sentence.
• Enhances a deeper level of understanding  of how different words, modifiers, phrases and clauses work together in forming a sentence.
• Helps in remembering grammar rules through visualisation using key points.

The above explanation and images will help you to construct a basic sentence diagram. Phrases and Clauses in sentence diagram are much more complex and will be discussed later in another post.