School and the City

Each year, I have students struggle with putting ending punctuation in the correct spots.  They know that they needed to use periods, but will put periods at the ends of lines or in seemingly random spots. I've spent a lot of time on this over the past few years and thought I'd share some tips for teaching punctuation to your elementary students. Use Mentor Texts To teach students how to be good writers, have them study books (and other texts) as mentors. Spend a lot of time discussing punctuation as you read: What punctuation is the author using? Why was that mark chosen, and why was it placed there? How does this punctuation mark help me as a reader? What can I learn as a writer? Practice Oral Reading Use nonsense words or silly sentences for students to notice how our voices change depending on the punctuation that is used at the end of the sentence. I love this idea from The Unique Classroom : This can help students realize the importanc...