Adverbs Educational Resources

An adverb is a part of speech that modifies, or changes the meaning of, a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a noun phrase, a clause, or even a whole sentence. Teaching kids how to use adverbs properly will give them the tools to jazz up their language. Use our resources below to start building their adverb vocabulary.

The definition of an adverb is broad, but it’s helpful to think of it as giving us extra information about the other parts of speech. So while a verb tells us an action, an adverb gives us the character of that action. It often ends in the suffix “-ly” so it’s easy to identify. It expresses manner, place, time, frequency, level of certainty and more.

Some common examples are: carefully, beautifully, angrily, stupidly, loudly, rapidly

Adverbs, or adverbial clauses and phrases, also answer these questions: How? When? Where? Why? To what extent?

Some of the different kinds of adverbs include:

Adverbs of manner describe how something happens.
Example: I ate my sandwich quickly.

Adverbs of time indicate when things happen.
Example: I will clean my room tomorrow.

Adverbs of place describe where the action happened.
Example: I left my book upstairs.

Adverbs of purpose tell us why something happens.
Example: I ate the sandwich because I was hungry.

Adverbs of completeness tells us the extent of the action.
Example: I am almost finished with my homework.

Adverbs of frequency tell us how often something happens.
Example: My sister is always late.

Without adverbs, our language would be lackluster. Having a greater understanding of how they can enhance our sentences will make writing fun for kids. Try our worksheets, activities and games, and watch their imaginations flourish.