Capital letters

Capital letters

Pencil and paper
Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Working with Students
Further Resources
This task is about putting capital letters in the right places.

Ben wrote a description of himself. He forgot to put capital letters in some places.

Read his description below and put capital letters in all the places they are needed.

All About Me

 

My name is ben parata. I have blue eyes and brown hair. I am seven years old and my birthday is on the fourth of may. There are six people in my family. I have two older sisters and a younger brother. We have a pet budgie called squawk and a dog called patch. We used to live in gisborne but we moved to auckland in september. At the moment we are living at my grandma's house but we will be moving into our new house soon. Our new house is in milbrook road so it won't take me long to get to school.

My friends at sunnyvale school are tim and josh. My best friend from my old school, is jason. He still writes me letters sometimes. In the school holidays I am going to stay with him.

My hobbies are skateboarding, making model planes, and reading. I go to swimming lessons every monday after school and I play soccer at henderson park on saturday mornings. My soccer coach is steve fletcher. He is really cool. My favourite book is "the mouse and the motorcycle".
Task administration: 
This task can be completed with pencil and paper.
Level:
2
Curriculum info: 
English, Making meaning, Reading
Key Competencies: 
Using language, symbols, and texts
Keywords: 
capital letters, nouns, punctuation, text features
Description of task: 
Students read a boy's description of himself, identify the places in which capital letters have been omitted for proper nouns, and insert these.
Curriculum Links: 
This resource can be used to help to identify students’ ability to create texts to meet the writing demands of the New Zealand Curriculum.
 

Links to the Literacy Learning Progressions for Writing:
This resource helps to identify students’ ability to:
  • use basic punctuation that is mostly correct, including punctuation of dialogue
as described in the Literacy Learning Progressions for Writing at: http://www.literacyprogressions.tki.org.nz/The-Structure-of-the-Progressions.
Learning Progression Frameworks
This resource can provide evidence of learning associated with
Making sense of text: processing system, set 3
Making sense of text: text structure, set 3
within the Reading Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Read more about the Learning Progressions Frameworks.
Answers/responses: 
 

Y4 (11/2001)

All christian names (Ben, Tim, Josh, Jason, Steve) begin with capitals.

There is one omission of a capital for a name.

moderate

easy

Both surnames (Parata, Fletcher) begin with capitals.

Only one surname begins with a capital.

moderate

easy

Both pet names (Squawk, Patch) begin with capitals.

Only one pet name begins with a capital.

easy

easy

Both months (May, September) begin with capitals.

Only one month begins with a capital.

moderate

easy

Both city names (Gisborne, Auckland) begin with capitals.

Only one city name begins with a capital.

easy

very easy

The first part of both street names (Keeling, Milbrook) begin with capitals.

The first part of only one street name begins with a capital.

difficult

easy

The second part of both street names (Street, Road) begin with capitals.

The second part of only one street name begins with a capital.

very difficult

very difficult

Both parts of the school name (Sunnyvale School) begin with capitals.

Only one part of the school name begins with a capital.

very difficult

easy

Both days of the week (Monday, Saturday) begin with capitals.

Only one day of the week begins with a capital.

difficult

moderate

Both parts of the park name (Henderson Park) begin with capitals.

Only one part of the park name begins with a capital.

very difficult

moderate

The book title ("The Mouse and the Motorcycle") has all the necessary words capitalised. [Students who capitalise "and" and "the" have not been penalised in this item.]

 

There is one omission of a capital from a word in the title that should have one.

very difficult

 

difficult
Diagnostic and formative information: 
Common errors
School Name "Sunnyvale School" 60% of students gave the word "Sunnyvale" a capital letter, but only 13% gave the word "School" a capital.
Park Name "Henderson Park" 57% of students gave the word "Henderson" a capital letter, but only 11% gave the word "Park" a capital.