It is better to use the following guidelines when you are aware that your child is covering, or has covered each element, at school.

FULL STOPS

WHAT TO DO

• Look at a newspaper, a comic, an advertisement or even a cereal box with your child.

• Help your child to find a full stop. Read the sentence before it and the one after it, stopping for five seconds at the full stop. Ask ‘Why do you think it is in that place?’

• You may have to explain the function of the full stop. It ends a sentence, gives a long pause and helps the reader to understand the meaning.

• Tell your child that in the following story, a full stop thief has come along and stolen all the full stops. Read the story aloud.

• Can your child put the full stops back in, or say where they should go? You can help by pausing briefly at the right places.

To parents or carers

This activity is for you and your child to do together. Please let your child take the lead.

This activity will help your child to

• understand what full stops do and why we use them at the end of sentences.

CAPTIONS

WHAT TO DO

• Look at pictures with your child, and ask them to suggest captions for each one which describes what they can see. Help your child to write a caption under each picture, or write it for them.

• Then ask your child to read the caption back to you. It doesn’t matter if they use the picture for help, or if they use their memory.

To parents or carers

This activity is for you and your child to do together. Please let your child take the lead.

This activity will help your child to

• write simple sentences in the form of captions

• read the sentences back.

If your child can’t write the sentence for each picture, write it for them and read the sentence several times to them. You don’t have to sound each sound out. The idea is to help the child become familiar with the words, and to enjoy looking at them.

CAPITAL LETTERS

WHAT TO DO

• Find some sentences – in a newspaper or a comic, or perhaps on the back of a cereal packet. Go with your child on a capital letter hunt.

• Ask ‘When do we use capitals?’ Discuss with them

– at the beginnings of sentences

– for the letter ‘i’ in sentences like ‘I go to school’

– for the beginnings of names, such as England, Julie, Paramjeet, Mr Smith, Kellogg’s.

• Help your child to put the capitals in the right places in the story opposite.

To parents or carers

This activity is for you and your child to do together. Please let your child take the lead.

This activity will help your child to

• recognise and use capital letters..

COMMAS AND EXCLAMATION MARKS

WHAT TO DO

• Find a suitable story in a newspaper – a short and fairly simple one – and read it with your child. Pause at length at each comma, and make something of each exclamation mark by showing great surprise, or horror: throw your hands up in the air, or go ‘Wow!’ (These are called screamers by printers!)

• Help your child to write some sentences with a comma at a pause. If they are wild and joyful sentences, they can have an exclamation mark, like these:

I sang songs, jumping up and down like a mad thing !

Father Christmas will come, bringing me presents !

One sentence could be a list, like this:

I like sweets, chips, coke, crisps, apples, pears and, most of all, custard.

• Help your child to make a list sentence with commas.

To parents or carers

This activity is for you and your child to do together. Please let them take the lead.

This activity will help your child to

• understand how to use commas and exclamation marks.

VERBS

WHAT TO DO

A verb is a doing word. Here are some:

run jump talk

eat like think

• See if you can think of some more and write them down.

• The sentences below have lost their verbs. Can you put them back? There is more than one right answer. You have been given some ideas for the first one.

The boy ..................................... the frame in the park.

(It could be climbed, kicked, crawled on... )

The cat .....................................the bird in the garden.

The leaves will ..................................... off the trees in autumn.

I ..................................... ‘Come here now!’

He ..................................... his tea quickly.

The girl ..................................... chocolates.

The boy ..................................... to school.

To parents or carers

This activity is for your child to do on his or her own. It helps practise work already covered in school.

This activity will help your child to

• learn that a verb is a doing word

• practise correct sentences.

By Year 3, most children should understand that a sentence must have a verb in it.

SPEECH BUBBLES

WHAT TO DO

Here is a comic story.

• Write in the speech bubbles what you think the children might be saying.

• Write underneath each picture what is going on.

To parents or carers

This activity is for your child to do on his or her own. It helps practise work already covered in school.

This activity will help your child to

• learn that there are different ways of presenting texts. For example, there are speech bubbles and captions.

CHANGE THE VERBS

WHAT TO DO

Here is a boring story. All the verbs are the same!

• Can you change the verbs to tell us more about how the things happened? For example, the first ‘went’ could be ‘travelled’.

I went to the seaside. Then I went in the sea. Later I went on the pier. I went right to the end of the pier. Then I went home.

• Below it is another sentence where the verbs are all the same. Can you change them, and make the sentence less boring and more interesting?

I like ice cream and I like smarties and I like sprouts and I like my teacher.

On a piece of paper

• Use these verbs to make up your own short story. It could be a horror story. You can use them in any order.

went screamed shivered

crawled found noticed

howled died

To parents or carers

This activity is for your child to do on his or her own. It helps practise work already covered in school.

This activity will help your child to

• understand how verbs can say more than what simply happened (‘went’, ‘liked’) but how it happened (‘ran’, ‘dashed’, ‘enjoyed’, ‘admired’, etc.)

• write clear sentences.

ADVERBS

WHAT TO DO

An adverb tells us more about another word, usually a verb. It often answers a question ‘How?’ For example, ‘How did the child run?’ ‘How did the boy shout?’

• Sort out some action pictures. Under each one write an adverb that suits it.

• There will be more than one suitable adverb. You could write two for each picture. 

To parents or carers

This activity is for your child to do on his or her own. It helps practise work already covered in school.

This activity will help your child to

• understand how adverbs work

• understand how adverbs can add to the meaning of a verb. For example, ‘shouted angrily’.

You could help your child by acting adverbs. Mime shouting angrily, for example.

WRITING FOR AN AUDIENCE

WHAT TO DO

Can you remember something that happened to you when you were very young? Maybe it was funny. Maybe it was frightening.

– Did you lose your Mum or Dad in the street?

– Did you get a wonderful present?

– Did you have an accident?

– Was a baby sister or brother born?

– Were you ill?

– Did something frighten you?

• Think of something – then quickly make some notes about it.

• Use your notes to write about it for a young child. Think of a boy or girl of about five, and make your story interesting for them.

- Use simple words.

- Use short sentences.

- Use word pictures that are clear.

To parents or carers

This activity is for your child to do on his or her own. It helps practise work already covered in school.

This activity will help your child to

• understand how stories work, and how writers have to adapt what they write for a different audience – in this case younger brothers and sisters.

If you have younger children, it would be helpful if your child could read the story to them. Otherwise, the story might be useful when visiting relatives.

VERB TENSES

WHAT TO DO

• Put all these verbs into the past tense and the future tense. One has been done for you.

Past tense Present tense Future tense

ran runs will run

talks

eats

annoys

gallops

upsets

infuriates

collides

On a piece of paper

• Choose two of the verbs and write three sentences for each: one in the past, one in the present, one in the future.

To parents or carers

This activity is for your child to do on his or her own. It helps practise work already covered in school.

This activity will help your child to

• understand tenses (past, present, future) in sentences

• practise using verbs.

PREPOSITIONS

WHAT TO DO

The underlined words below are prepositions.

They express a relationship between two other words: hand/on/table, hid/behind/curtain.

I put my hand on the table.

She hid behind the curtain.

• Underline the prepositions in these sentences. One has been done for you.

The cat pounced on the bed.

The dog barked at the man.

The aeroplane took off near the runway.

The troll lived under the bridge.

The footballer aimed at the corner flag.

On a piece of paper

• Write a sentence for each of these prepositions:

under over beside in

through on throughout before

beneath in nearby beyond at

Here is an example to get you going:

I crawled through the tunnel.

To parents or carers

This activity is for your child to do on his or her own. It helps practise work already covered in school.

This activity will help your child to

• understand how language works

• name parts of speech.

PUNCTUATION

WHAT TO DO

• Put the punctuation into this story.

That was the day Emily nearly died wed found a secluded spot by shiny smooth rocks and were putting out the picnic when my father saw the tiny shape of my four year old sister high on a cliff she was fifty metres away how had she got there

oh no shouted my mother we ran to the place under the cliff and slowly laboriously my father started to climb stay where you are we all shouted Emily dont move...

You will need these:

full stops .

commas ,

question marks ?

exclamation marks !

speech marks " "

apostrophes ’

You might find a semi-colon useful ;

On a piece of paper

• Finish the story (happily – it did end happily!) and pay special attention to your punctuation.

To parents or carers

This activity is for your child to do on his or her own. It helps practise work already covered in school.

This activity will help your child to

• punctuate a sentence correctly.

By Year 6 most children are expected to use most punctuation marks such as commas, semi-colons and full stops correctly. It will help them to write vividly.