General
__ Does the student understand the conventions of capitalization appropriate to his or her phase of language development?
__ Does the student understand the purpose of punctuation and that it is assisted by knowledge of the intonation patterns of speech? (As students listen to a sentence, they usually hear the pauses that may require punctuation to aid the reader in correctly interpreting what has been written. A falling pitch and full pause usually indicate a period is needed while a slight pause may indicate a comma.)
__ Is the punctuation correct and appropriate in revised compositions?
__ Does the student have problems with capitalization and punctuation? With which elements? In what circumstances?
Capital Letters
__ First word of every sentence
__ First word in a direct quote
__ Names of people and words used as names
__ Names of places
__ Days of the week
__ Titles
__ Names of languages, nationalities, and religions
End Punctuation
Period (.)
__ at the end of a statement
__ after an abbreviation
__ after an initial
Question Mark (?)
__ after direct questions
Exclamation Mark (!)
__ after a word or words showing excitement
Non-terminal Punctuation
Comma (,)
__ dates and addresses (e.g., June 6, 2005)
__ elements in a series (e.g., The dogs barked, ran, and jumped.)
__ after yes and no (e.g., Yes, I will go.)
__ after an introductory statement (e.g., When I hear from you, I will do it.)
__ with an apposition (e.g., Jane, my best friend, called me.)
__ to separate a quotation from the speaker (e.g., John said, "How old are you?")
Note: Elementary Level students will not use all of these consistently but will be exposed to them as they read most texts.
Quotation marks (" ")
__ around a speaker's exact words (e.g., John said, "I can go." "Why," he asked, "didn't you tell me?")
__ around titles of short prose, poems, songs, and other works (e.g., I like "The Highwayman".)
Apostrophe (')
__ show possession (e.g., This is Jane's pencil.)
__ show contractions (e.g., I won't forget that.)
Note: The possessive of "it" is formed without an apostrophe (its) to avoid confusion with it's (it is).
Colon (:)
__ before a list
__ after the greeting of a business letter
__ in writing time (e.g., 2:00 p.m.)
Note: Other non-terminal punctuation marks include the dash, the hyphen, and ellipsis. An understanding of these is usually acquired at the Middle Level (grades 6-9).
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