Pronouns & Agreement
📋 What it is
A pronoun (he, she, it, they) stands in for a noun, and must match it in number and gender.
🗣️ Coach says
Pronouns save you from repeating names. But the pronoun has to AGREE with the noun it replaces — one dog is “it”, two dogs are “they”. Mismatches (“each student brought their…”) trip up even adults.
🧠 Memory hook
A pronoun must match its noun — same number, same gender. One = it/he/she, many = they.
😂 Giggle
What do you call a dinosaur that knows all the parts of speech?
A Thesaurus Rex!
😲 Whoa!
“They” has been used for a single unknown person since the 1300s — Shakespeare and Jane Austen both did it.
✅ Quick check: “The team celebrated ___ victory.” Which pronoun agrees — its or their?
Say your answer out loud first — then reveal.
“Its” — a team is one unit (singular), so the singular “its” agrees.
A collective noun acting as one unit takes a singular pronoun.
🧪 Try it! (2 minutes)
Rewrite “Maya lost Maya’s book so Maya looked for the book” using pronouns. Notice how many you can replace.