What Punctuation Mark Do I Use?

Commas. Apostrophes. Quotation Marks. Oh my! These 3 punctuation points can be so stressful for students! There are so many rules to follow, which results in much confusion. Therefore, it can be overwhelming to figure out what punctuation mark to use so that students do not end up with sentences fragments. Hence, the Punctuation Task Cards Bundle provides a ton of guidance, support, and practice for students. With this bundle, students will become so confident at using punctuation marks. 

What punctuation mark would I use when needing to pause?

When students see a comma, they may often wonder: What punctuation mark is this? While a comma is small, it is so powerful in sentences! It allows the reader to know when to pause for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately, many students miss adding commas due to the number of times they are used. There is not just one rule or two rules to remember; there are so many! However, by breaking the comma rules down into a few at a time, students won’t be so overwhelmed. Additionally, by adding a few in each time, students will be able to reinforce the previous rules while practicing new ones. 

While the bundle below focuses on many rules, let’s break down a few. A great rule to start with is adding a comma between cities and states. For example, Tulsa Oklahoma should be written as Tulsa, Oklahoma. Students can practice this rule when learning about geography, places they have visited, and locations in books. As students begin to write more, there will be several other rules that are great starting points. For instance, in a series or list often makes for fun practice. Students can list 3 or more of their favorite things! Then, they can practice adding in the commas. Specifically, I like chocolate vanilla and strawberry is not grammatically correct. However, students can go in and add one comma after chocolate and one comma after vanilla. After this, students can begin to practice introductory phrases, ones with quotation marks for dialogue, and coordinate adjectives. 

What punctuation mark would I use when showing a plural? 

Students may often wonder what punctuation mark allows them to make something mean more than one. The answer is the apostrophe! Sadly, the apostrophe placement can cause undue confusion for students. There are multiple uses and it can be tricky to know where to put it. To begin, it will be helpful to review the uses for the apostrophe. First, it can indicate a possessive noun. For example, the apostrophe in the phrase “dog’s house” helps show the house belongs to the dog. Second, it can indicate something is plural. For instance, the phrase “boys’ ball” helps show the ball is shared among several boys. Third, it can show the omission of letters through conjunctions. For example, don’t is exactly written as don’t. By doing this, the contraction means do not. 

What punctuation mark would I use when writing dialogue?

As students get older, they often love to write creative stories. However, these stories often require dialogue. Although dialogue can be tricky to learn, practice makes it much easier! Thus, when students are asking what punctuation mark is used to show someone is talking, the answer is quotation marks. As an example, if a student wrote the line: Penelope said I really need to eat my vegetables, a few quotation marks are needed. By doing this, it is clear what the character actually said. Therefore, the line should read: Penelope said, “I really need to eat my vegetables.” Thankfully, students will also have additional comma practice with quotation marks! 

Punctuation Task Cards Bundle

Commas, apostrophes, and quotation marks can be overwhelming! Unfortunately, punctuation may not be the most engaging topic to teach. However, punctuation is one of the most important topics to learn as students will use it throughout life. Therefore, this task card bundle is the perfect way to turn punctuation into an interactive lesson! Even better, it includes anchor charts, activities, and task cards to help students practice! 

This bundle includes over 100 pages of task cards and anchor charts filled with punctuation rules. For commas, there is everything needed to teach most of the comma rules out there with 36 task cards! For instance, students will learn about dates, coordinating conjunctions, and introductory phrases. Students are going to understand the correct placement of commas after these task cards. For apostrophes, there are also 36 task cards to provide plenty of practice for students. To help, there is also an instructional page. In order to ensure students truly master the content, there are three distinct question types. For quotation marks in dialogue, there are also 36 task cards and four anchor charts. As above, there are three question types to ensure students understand the topic. Thankfully, ALL task cards are available in Google Slides and Google Forms. 

Punctuation can be overwhelming and stressful to learn. However, it doesn’t have to be! The Punctuation Task Cards Bundle will make these lessons engaging while offering plenty of practice. Due to this, students will love learning how to add correct punctuation to their writing. Then they can start doing fun biography projects, as well as persuasive writing. 

If you do not want to miss any of the upcoming lessons, join my email list to be notified of all the interactive lessons coming up! By joining the email list, you will also receive freebies for blog exclusive subscribers!