Year 6 · SPaG · Spring: Formal and informal writing
Year 6 question tags worksheet and PowerPoint
To form question tags correctly and to know that they belong to informal speech and writing.
Question tags
A question tag is a short question added to the end of a statement. It uses the same helping verb as the statement, with the opposite meaning (positive → negative, negative → positive), and a pronoun for the subject.
| positive statement | She is late, isn’t she? |
|---|---|
| negative statement | They can’t swim, can they? |
| no helping verb | Tom likes tea, doesn’t he? (use do, does or did) |
| register | question tags are informal, so they are rare in formal writing |
Examples
- The girls are late, aren’t they?
- She hasn’t finished, has she?
Key words
- question tag
- a short question added to a statement
- auxiliary verb
- a helping verb such as is, has, can, do
- pronoun
- he, she, it, they...
- opposite meaning
- positive becomes negative and the other way round
What is on the worksheet
Every sheet for this lesson has a short teaching box and 12 questions that get gradually harder: 8 fluency questions, then 4 reasoning questions that ask pupils to explain or choose. A writing challenge follows. The questions use the same styles as the key stage 2 grammar and punctuation test (circle, underline, tick, fill the gap, add punctuation, rewrite, explain). They are written for this website, not copied from past papers.
All the answers are on the last page of the same editable Word file. New questions are made every time, so you can print a different sheet for every group or for homework. The same sheet code always gives the same sheet.
Writing challenge: Write a short conversation between two friends planning a party. Use at least six question tags and underline each one.
Pupil target: I can add a question tag.
The PowerPoint
A 20-slide lesson deck for the same lesson: a starter that revisits earlier learning, key words, an I do and a You do question on each slide with a countdown timer, answers that appear one click at a time, and a challenge. Download the question tags PowerPoint.
Where this lesson fits
This is lesson 44 of 72 in the Year 6 SPaG scheme, in the Spring term, block “Formal and informal writing”. It is taught before the SATs grammar test in May.
Other lessons in this block
- Formal and informal writing
- The subjunctive in formal writing
- Formal vocabulary
- Writing in a formal style
- Standard English
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