A fronted adverbial is a word, phrase, or clause that is used as an adverb, modifying a verb or a clause that comes after it. It is placed at the beginning of a sentence to describe the action that follows. Fronted adverbials can be used to add sentence variation to a piece of writing or text. They are taught in primary school, usually from Year 4 onwards, by showing examples and modelling how to use them in writing. Teachers will explain what they are and encourage children to use the terminology. Children will then be given activities to complete in small groups or individually, such as playing games to change adverbials, identifying and highlighting fronted adverbials in texts, and cutting up sentences to move the adverbials to the front and discussing the effect on the text.