•Abbreviations: a shortened form of a word or phrase. It is a letter or group of letters taken from the word or phrase. We use abbreviations for: invitations, addresses, dates, days of week, months of the year, organizations.
Examples: R.S.V.P., Sept., Wed., NBA
• Action verbs ending with -ing
Examples: jogging, laughing, smiling, daydreaming
• Apostrophes: show possession (who "owns" something) and contractions.
Examples: Jack's bike is red. (Jack owns the bike, so we use an apostrophe)
The house's chimney is puffing smoke. (The chimney belongs to the house)
The apostrophe is also used to show a missing letter: can't (can not), I'm (I am), you're (you are), it's (it is), O'er (over), I've (I have)
• Capitalized Words: a word that begins with a capital letter (upper-case letter) and the remaining letters are lower case.
Examples: beginnings of sentences, names of people, names of places, the word “I”, days of the week, months of the year, titles (e.g., Mr., Mrs., Miss, Ms., Dr.), names of organizations, names of special days (e.g., Christmas, Canada Day).
• Choosing an appropriate tense: certain genres are typically written in a specific tense. Narrative stories are often written in the past tense. Information text is usually written in the present tense. Poems may be written in any tense. Letters may be a combination of tenses. For instance, the writer may begin in the present tense and later use the past tense when telling about something that happened prior to writing the letter.
• Colon in a list: Colons are used to indicate that a list will follow.
example: I enjoy everything about summer: the sunshine, the beaches, and the barbecues!
• Commas: commas are used in a list to separate ideas, and they are used to separate the month and day from the year.
Example: Sam needed to get hats, plates, cutlery, prizes, candles, and loot bags for the party. The party would be on June 10, 2013.
• Comparatives and superlatives: used when comparing two or more items or people. Most comparatives are formed by adding “er” to the adjective. Most superlatives are formed by adding “est” to the adjective
example: “large” becomes “larger”
example: “nice” becomes “nicest”
When the adjective is a two syllable word that ends in “y”, the “y” changes to an “i” before the “er” or “est” is added to the word
“funny” becomes “funnier” and “funniest”
When the adjective is a two syllable or multi-syllable word that does not end in “y”, the comparative is formed by using the word “more” plus the adjective plus the word “than”
“The story was more interesting than a Hollywood production.”
• Compound words: when two or more words are joined together to form a new word
examples: newspaper, cupcake, backpack
• Creating plurals using the vowel plus “y” rule: When a noun ends in a vowel plus a “y”, simply add an “s” to create the plural form
example: day – days; toy – toys; monkey – monkeys).
This differs from creating plurals when a noun ends with a consonant plus “y”. In this case, the “y” is changed to “i” before adding “es”
example: " story” becomes “stories” in the plural form
• Dialogue conventions: Dialogue within a story uses quotation marks for the exact words of each character and punctuation for dialogue tags.
For example, “Let’s get out of here! Run!” shouted Emily. Conor shrieked, “I’m coming!”
Dialogue within a play requires the character’s name with a colon following the name to denote the exact words spoken by that character.
For example, Emily: Let’s get out of here! Run! Connor: I’m coming!
• Distinguishing between possessives and plurals: Plurals mean more than one of an object or idea, whereas possessives show ownership. Plurals are usually created by adding an “s” to a noun (or “es” to nouns that end in “ch”, “sh”, or “th” and to nouns that end in the letter “x”
one book – two books
Possessives typically involve an apostrophe. The possessive shows ownership and includes an apostrophe
book’s cover
• Exclamation mark: used to show strong feelings or a raised voice in speech
example: She screamed, “The house is on fire!
• Homophones: words that are pronounced the same but do not have the same meaning. Sometimes they are spelled the same, and sometimes they are not.
Examples: hour/ our, rose (a flower)/ rose (past tense of “rise”), to/two/too/ bear (animal), bear (to carry), bare (naked)
• Linking words (co-ordinating conjunctions): words that join clauses or parts of a sentence.
examples: “but”, “so”, “and”, “since”, “besides”, “also”.
My dog is very patient and will even let you dress him up, but my cat is quite another story! (shows contrasting ideas)
Besides cumulus clouds, there are also stratus and cirrus clouds. (shows additional information)
• Periods: Periods are used at the end of a sentence and after most abbreviations
Example: Dr., Ms., Jr., Moe J. Smith
• Plurals: Usually we show there is more than one of something by adding "s"-one apple, two apples
If the word ends in s, x, z, ch, or sh, the plural is usually formed by adding "es"
one church, two churches/ one box, two boxes
If a word ends in y with a consonant before it (fly), you drop the y and add -ies to make it plural. If the y has a vowel before it (boys), then you just add the s.
Many nouns have irregular plurals- ones that are not made plural in the typical way. For example, the plural of “child” is “children”; the plural of “sheep” is “sheep”; the plural of “foot” is “feet”. There is no one rule that applies to all irregular plurals; it is a matter of recognizing that some nouns do not follow the usual rule of adding “s”.
• Possessives: words that show ownership and include possessive nouns or possessive pronouns. For possessive nouns, an apostrophe and an “s” are added to a singular noun
example: the boy’s cap
An “s” and then an apostrophe are added for a plural noun
example: the girls’ house
Possessive pronouns include “my”, “yours”, “his”, “hers”, “ours”, “theirs” and “its”
• Question Mark: A question mark should be used at the end of all direct questions. A question mark should not be used after an indirect question. For example, “The teacher asked the class if they saw the movie before.” does not include a direct question so a question mark is not needed.
• Quotation marks: show the exact words from a text or the exact words someone has spoken.
• Root-words and suffixes: Suffixes are added to the end of a root word to create a different word.
Examples are -tion, -al, -ness, -ment, -ful, -er, -less.
“Nation” can be used to create “national”; “environment” can become “environmental”; “stubborn” can become “stubbornness”; “advertise” can become “advertisement”; “joy” can become “joyful”; “sing” can become “singer”; “emotion” can become “emotionless”.
• Subject-verb agreement: refers to using the verb form that corresponds with the subject of the sentence
example: “I go”, not “I goes”; “he goes”, not “he go”