CC7 nonfinite (participle) complement with different subject
Intervention Outline
You will need:
2 ovals – hexagon – rectangle (+ semicircle) shapes
Blue pens
A main character for the oval – someone who likes to observe, e.g. lifeguard, policeman, teacher
Toys/matching object or pictures of these, e.g. boy – paintbrush, girl – skipping rope, lady – spade
Images of different locations e.g. beach, museum, pub.
App settings: Turn on tense arrows / use custom rectangle (NB you will not be able to place the oval inside a rectangle on this setting).
Intervention steps:
Establish CC3 first, then…
- Set up a scenario with the observer watching several other characters doing things, e.g. a boy painting, a girl skipping, a lady digging.
- Lay out the sentence oval – hexagon – rectangle as shown, below. Place/write the observer (e.g. the man) in the oval, place the skipping rope in the rectangle and write ‘sees’ on the blue verb line/arrow and ‘skipping’ in black in the rectangle (as shown, below). Ask the child who the man sees skipping? Answer: The girl. Write/place the girl on the second oval and place it into the rectangle.
Ask questions: “Who is seeing… ? Who is skipping? What is the man seeing?” Establish understanding:
Repeat with the other 2 characters I.e. the man sees the boy painting/the lady gardening.
Model and ask questions to establish understanding that the person in the second oval is doing the action but that the first oval is watching.
- Switch who is doing what action around and repeat.
- Now return to the 3 original subjects and introduce images of places they like to go, e.g. girl – museum / boy – beach / lady – allotment.
Lay out the sentence oval – hexagon –rectangle as shown below. Place/write ‘the man’ in the oval, place the image of the museum in the rectangle. Write ‘sees’ on the blue verb line/arrow and ‘going to the museum’ in black (as shown).
Write/place ‘the girl’ on the second oval and place it into the rectangle.
Model and ask questions to establish understanding that the person in the second oval is doing the action but that the first oval is watching.
- Repeat with the other 2 characters, e.g. “The man sees the boy going to the beach / the lady going to the allotment”.
Model and ask questions to establish understanding that the person in the second oval is doing the action but that the first oval is watching.
- Now introduce pronouns in the second oval. Set up one of the original scenarios and explain that the observer is going to watch what one character is doing.
Start with a simple SVO, e.g. “The man sees the girl”. Then remind the child how we can change ‘the girl’ to ‘her’ for the following sentences.
Explain that the same thing can happen in the new sentences – we can change ‘the girl’ to ‘her’ inside the rectangle as shown:
- Repeat with the other 2 characters – changing ‘the boy’ to ‘him’. Work through multiple examples, singular and plural, ensuring the child selects an objective pronoun (her, him, them, me, you, us) to start the phrase in the rectangle, e.g. “The man sees us playing. The man sees them drawing. The man sees me falling over”.
- Change the observer, e.g. “I see him playing. We see them talking.”
- When the construction is established using ‘to see’ , repeat the above using different perception verbs (smells, hears, notices, feel, catches).
Additional Resources

