Punctuation is important. It’s important for clarity, understanding, and fluency.
It effects voice and comprehension. It changes a situation with intonation and inflection.
I was reminded of this when I was eating my favorite donuts. Donuts?
The best donuts in the world are Duck Donuts…in my opinion.
I love them…and donuts make me smile.
As I was eating Duck Donuts for the millionth time, I was reminded of punctuation. As you can see in the picture above…I saw the t-shirt on the wall and starting laughing.
I turned to my husband and said, “DUCK! Donuts.” Then I laughed again.
This made me realize 3 things: 1. Only a teacher would laugh at a punctuation joke. 2. Duck Donuts obviously has a great sense of humor. and 3. My husband is a saint for putting up with me and my punctuation jokes.
1. Choose the End mark?
When students are first learning about ending marks, we have to practice reading with intonation and inflection.
Starting this practice from the beginning can be powerful for emergent readers.
Using cards with the same sentences and 3 different endings, students can play “Which End mark?”
They choose a card and read it with the ending in mind.
Their classmates need to guess the end mark.
2. Sing All About It!
Everyone knows it’s easy to teach early emergent and emergent readers a skill when it’s set to a tune.
These punctuation songs are set to the tune of “I’m a Little Teapot.”
Whether they are singing about the little period, the exclamation mark that yells or the curvy question mark they are sure to make a connection with the punctuation through song.
3. Do it.
Another sure fire way to get students to learn punctuation is to involve their whole body.
The same cards from the “Which End mark?” can be used for this.
Students will listen to the sentence and decide what punctuation is at the end.
If it’s a period, they squat down low.
If it’s an exclamation mark, they stretch their hands high above their head and clasp them together to make a tall exclamation mark.
Finally, if it’s a question mark, they will ‘hula’ their hips to show the curvy question mark.
4. Raise it up!
Finally, this can be a quiet game.
Everyone gets 3 signs glued on to tongue depressors.
As the teacher reads the sentence, the sign is raised.
It’s a great quick assessment without paper and pencil.
You can quickly see who knows the answer, who hesitates and who watches others.
Duck! Donuts.
If we want our students to understand end marks from the beginning, we need to teach it from the beginning. Likewise, in the land of flying donuts, we should do this to protect our students.
If you would like, CLICK HERE for the Freebie about End Marks.
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