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6
Punctuation
Learning outcomes
By reading this chapter you will develop your understanding of:
•what children need to understand about punctuation;
•what we need to know as primary teachers;
•some of the challenges we face when we teach children to punctuate;
•approaches to teaching punctuation.
Teachers’ Standards
This chapter will help you with the following Teachers’ Standards.
3 Demonstrate good subject and curriculum knowledge:
•have a secure knowledge of the relevant subject(s) and curriculum areas, foster and maintain
pupils’ interest in the subject, and address misunderstandings;
•demonstrate a critical understanding of developments in the subject and curriculum areas, and
promote the value of scholarship;
•demonstrate an understanding of, and take responsibility for, promoting high standards of literacy,
articulacy and the correct use of Standard English, whatever the teacher’s specialist subject.
Introduction
Within two years of publication, Lynne Truss’s (2003) book about punctuation, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The
Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, had sold three million copies. Even though the book you are
reading covers spelling and grammar too, we would not dare to dream of selling even 5 per cent of that
figure! But why should a book about commas, colons and apostrophes attract such interest? One reason was
that the title held an appeal, being based upon a misunderstanding caused by a missing comma:
A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it
at the other patrons.
“Why?” asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the
exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
“Well, I’m a panda,” he says, at the door. “Look it up.”
The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
“Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”
(Truss, 2003, back cover)
Another reason for the book’s appeal was that it was well-written, entertaining and full of humour.
Nevertheless, many people were taken by surprise by the book’s success, and it certainly provided plenty of
prompts for discussion in educational establishments and among the wider public.
That punctuation should be such a topic for discussion and debate is interesting, particularly given that
we managed quite well without it for many centuries. The word punctuation derives from the Latin pungere,
‘to prick’ (think of ‘puncture’); this gives punctus – ‘pierced’ – as the participle. Until 300 years ago very
little punctuation was used in texts, and then its main function was to help actors when reading aloud. The
marks showed suitable places to pause, breathe, and change the emphasis or tone of voice. Gradually,
punctuation marks began to be used more widely, and during the eighteenth century they started to look and
be used as they are today (Crystal, 1987).
In this chapter, you will look at the range of punctuation used in English and consider ways in which we
might develop children’s understanding. You will also see that punctuation can be a very powerful tool
when we write, enabling us to express ideas in different ways and often substituting for the tone, volume and
expression we are able to use in speech. You will find out more about all major punctuation marks, but you
will need to look at Chapter 7 for details about apostrophes. Such are the problems associated with correct
usage of apostrophes that we have devoted an entire chapter to them!
Why is punctuation important?
Choosing punctuation well is about communicating meaning precisely. When we speak, we can rely on
gesture, tone of voice and body language to make ourselves understood. There is often a shared context;
those involved are usually present, unless it is a phone or conference call. Everyday speech will often be
fragmented and rarely be in complete sentences, and if the meaning is unclear it can be immediately
clarified.
The distinction between speech and writing is, of course, more blurred than this. Take for example a
lecture or presentation; or the rehearsed speech you give when you have something difficult to
communicate; or a message left on voicemail. These will be less spontaneous and may be carefully prepared.
They can also be dynamic and can be altered and changed by content, tone and gesture in response to the
reaction of the audience. Answerphone messages can be re-recorded. Writers, of course, do not have the
same opportunity to change what they have written, unless they are publishing on the web. Once a piece of
writing is printed, there is little opportunity for revision.
The careful use of punctuation is one of many skills that writers need if they are to communicate clearly
in writing: it is more than memorising and applying a set of rules. Used well, punctuation allows certain
words, phrases and clauses to be emphasised and can make subtle or major changes to meaning. Thus, the
same words may be given different meanings through varying the punctuation marks.
Look at the sentence below. What does it tell you?
Charles the First walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut off.
Now look at the same sentence, but with a semi-colon and a comma added:
Charles the First walked and talked; half an hour after, his head was cut off.
Without accurate punctuation, the same words can convey different meanings. Look at the two sentences
below:
I saw a man eating tiger.
The host stood at the door and called the guests names.
As they stand, the sentences are grammatically accurate, but if we change the punctuation we can make
them mean something quite different:
I saw a man-eating tiger.
The host stood at the door and called the guests’ names.
Punctuation can be used to separate items and to draw them together. In the first example, the insertion of a
hyphen between man and tiger brings the two words together and changes the meaning of the sentence. In
the second, the apostrophe after guests shows that the names belonging to the guests were announced, rather
than that the host insulted his visitors. Crystal explains:
Punctuation marks are the main means of showing the grammatical organisation of what you
write. Hide the punctuation and you hide the grammatical structure. And if you hide the
grammatical structure, you hide the meaning of what you are trying to say.
(1996, p.151)
Put another way, punctuation can help us to resolve some of the ambiguities in a text. Graddol et al. (1996,
p.63) describe punctuation as guiding the reader’s interpretation of a text. Using it accurately is an integral
part of ensuring that the reader understands what you are trying to convey. It tells us who is speaking, and
exactly what they say. It indicates the status of the writing: a sentence ending in an exclamation mark is read
very differently from a sentence with a question mark.
The rules of punctuation are, however, not completely fixed. Just as spelling and pronunciation have
changed over the years, so has punctuation. While some punctuation is correct or incorrect, more
sophisticated uses can be a matter of choice or style. There will be times when we can choose between full
stops, commas, colons and semi-colons; we can choose when to use exclamation marks, or decide to
substitute brackets for dashes.
Text messages are rarely punctuated, and sophisticated punctuation is actively discouraged. A number of
blogs suggest that using a semi-colon in a text shows that the message has been too thought-out, revised, and
over-edited. Or to put it another way, a semi-colon in a text message is the equivalent of putting on makeup
to go to the gym (Greenspan, 2011).
Research focus: rules and conventions
Bunting maintains that there are two main aspects of punctuation: rules which must be used and conventions
which are more open to interpretation. She provides the following examples of rules in English.
•Capital letters at the beginning of sentences.
•Full stops to end sentences.
•Question marks at the end of sentences which are questions; apostrophes to mark elision (don’t)
and possession (John’s) (its is the possessive exception).
(Bunting, 1997, p.44)
What we know about young children learning to punctuate
As we saw in Chapter 1, children come to school with a lot of intuitive knowledge about grammar and how
to make meaning. Graham and Kelly (2003) draw attention to examples of young children’s earliest writing
attempts that contain punctuation-like symbols, although they are clear that there is a significant difference
between using a symbol and understanding its significance.
Research focus: children’s attitude to punctuation
In his study of children learning to punctuate, Hall (2005) compares two young writers. One of the children
saw punctuation as serving no function other than being demanded by the teacher. Without a grasp of what
punctuation was for, the child had omitted punctuation marks or randomly interspersed them within the text.
The child’s explanation for the placement of full stops included ‘because it’s a bit long’ or ‘I didn’t put one
in that line so I put it there’. The other child was curious about punctuation and was noticing it in her
reading. She had worked out the basic relationship between punctuation and the structure of written
language. Punctuation was used to demarcate units of meaning: it was an intrinsic part of the writing
process. Hall points out that appreciating the basic relationship between punctuation and the structure of
written language is the first major conceptual leap for children.
Hall writes that punctuation must be a very strange object for beginning writers (2001, p.141). His
research into how young children learn to write also suggests that punctuation may be fairly low down their
list of priorities, and hard for them to focus on, particularly as it is the least visually salient aspect of writing
(2001, p.144).
However, the National Curriculum for English requires children in Year 1 to be introduced to the use of
capital letters, full stops, question marks and exclamation marks to demarcate sentences. By the time they
are assessed at the end of Year 2, the knowledge they need to demonstrate includes the use of commas in
lists and apostrophes to mark contracted forms. When children sit the Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling
test (GP&S) the end of Year 6 they will need to have a sophisticated understanding of punctuation, including
the accurate use of semi-colons, colons and dashes and hyphens. The broad progression for what needs to be
covered in each year group is outlined below (DfE, 2013, pp.75-79).
Year Punctuation
1 Separation of words with spaces.
Introduction to the use of capital letters, full stops, question marks and exclamation marks to demarcate sentences.
Capital letters for names and for the personal pronoun.
2Use of capital letters, full stops, question marks and exclamation marks to demarcate sentences
Commas to separate items in a list
Apostrophes to mark where letters are missing in spelling and to mark singular possession in nouns [for example, the
girl’s name]
3 Introduction to inverted commas to punctuate direct speech.
4Use of inverted commas and other punctuation to indicate direct
speech [for example, a comma after the reporting
clause; end punctuation within inverted commas: The conductor shouted, “Sit
down!”]
Apostrophes to mark plural possession [for example, the girl’s name,
the girls’ names]
Use of commas after fronted adverbials
5 Brackets, dashes or commas to indicate parenthesis.
Use of commas to clarify meaning or avoid ambiguity.
6Use of the semi-colon, colon and dash to mark the boundary between independent clauses [for example, It’s
raining; I’m fed up]
Use of the colon to introduce a list and use of semi-colons within lists
Punctuation of bullet points to list information
How hyphens can be used to avoid ambiguity [for example, man eating shark versus man-eating shark, or recover versus
re-cover]
Teaching punctuation – what primary teachers need to know
Full stops and question marks
The most basic concept in punctuation is the sentence. Kress (1982) reminds us that this is a key element
of learning to write, but, as we have seen, this is not the basic unit in which children – or most adults –
speak.
If you have taught at Key Stage 1, you may frequently have come across children putting a capital letter
at the beginning of every ‘sentence’, but a full stop at the end of every line. As we have seen from Hall
(2001), the basic relationship between punctuation and the structure of written language is not yet clear to
them. This practice also mirrors some of the texts young learners read, comprising short sentences and just
one line to a page. Even towards the end of Key Stage 2, you may find children who are still struggling with
demarcating sentences correctly. We recently came across a Year 5 writer who had been set a target for his
writing: ‘Remember capital letters and full stops’. He was a keen writer and when he had the opportunity, he
would write pages of rushed narrative packed full of action, but with no punctuation. He had kept the same
target for the whole of Year 4. Not only was this enormously dispiriting, but it was also likely to remain the
case throughout Year 5 unless something significant happened to change the situation.
The case study below shows how one teacher used a novel approach to encourage her class to focus on
the functions of punctuation marks.
Case study: Year 6 children who use very little punctuation
Zafira’s Year 6 class included several children whose punctuation, apart from full stops, tended to be erratic
or absent. She found that asking the children to go back and check their work before they handed it in was
ineffective: most seemed content to add a random comma or two and then submit their writing again. Zafira
decided that she would get children to read aloud and record their work, so that they could listen to it and
follow the text to see where punctuation might be needed. She provided two voice-recorders and a quiet
space for children to do this. She found that not only did many children develop a greater awareness of
where they had missed punctuation when they listened to their recordings, but that many also paused as they
were recording to insert punctuation. As a result, Zafira decided to make time for children to read their work
aloud to each other more often, and to encourage them to help each other to add and correct punctuation.
Try reading your own writing aloud. If you have ever written a story for children, you may well have
checked it carefully, but you will probably discover when you read it aloud that there are mistakes,
repetitions and omissions which your proofreading didn’t reveal.
Curriculum links
Children should indicate grammatical and other features by:
•using commas to clarify meaning or avoid ambiguity in writing;
•using hyphens to avoid ambiguity;
•using brackets, dashes or commas to indicate parenthesis;
•using semi-colons, colons or dashes to indicate a stronger sub-division of a sentence than a
comma;
•punctuating bullet points consistently.
Asking children to look at a list of sentences and identify which require full stops and which need
question marks may help to reinforce the use of punctuation. An alternative to this is to provide the children
with answers and ask them to write their own questions in as creative a way as possible. You might even
show them the well-known Two Ronnies sketch in which Corbett specialises in answering the question
before last (www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvmRI6K8TS8).
Children could be asked to think of questions that might produce answers such as:
Half past nine;
Yes, but only on Saturdays;
Florida.
They also need to know that when the question is indirect, the sentence does not need a question mark:
She wondered what he was thinking of.
He asked whether the train was on time.
Capital letters
Historically, capital letters have been used to portray formality. In the forum of Ancient Rome, the
emperors’ deeds were written in capital letters. Until the nineteenth century it was common for all nouns to
be capitalised in English (they still are in German). Today, however, dropping the initial capital letter from
a company name can be seen as a mark of significant success. The move from Hoover and Google to
hoover, now a generic term for vacuum cleaners, and google, now often a generic term for search engines
(despite the Google company’s efforts to resist this), demonstrates how influential these companies have
become.
The rules for using capital letters are generally quite straightforward.
•A sentence always begins with a capital letter.
•A proper noun, such as your name, always begins with a capital letter.
•A proper noun, such as a country or place and words relating to them, begins with a capital letter:
Portugal, Portuguese. You do not capitalise these words when they are part of a fixed phrase such
as french windows; this has no direct connection with France.
•Titles of special days, books, plays and films begin with a capital letter: Diwali, The Tempest,
Mission Impossible. A capital letter is needed for all the main words, but not for connecting words
such as a, of, the: The House at Pooh Corner; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
•Use capital letters at the beginning of an abbreviation if the original form starts with a capital
letter: Doctor, Dr. If you are using the first letter of abbreviated words, every letter should be a
capital: MP (Member of Parliament).
•The pronoun ‘I’ is always capitalised.
There are some interesting exceptions.
•Although the names of the days of the week and the months of the year are written with a capital
letter, the seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter) are not.
•Whether or not you capitalise the main words in the title of a book at the end of an academic
assignment will depend on the referencing system being used. The American Psychological
Association (APA, 2010) style, for example, only requires you to use a capital letter for the first
word of a title: Grammar, punctuation and spelling in primary schools. The referencing system
used in this book does require capital letters for main words.
The comma
The use of the comma can only be understood when children have an understanding of the nature of a
sentence. Brien (2012) writes that this is one of the most difficult pieces of punctuation to teach, because
writers need to make judgements about when it is helpful. She points out that many writers have a quirky
approach to commas because they want to depict idiosyncratic speech or distinct authorial voice, citing Jane
Austen’s lavish use of commas as an example (2012, p.113). Truss suggests that the comma, more than any
other mark, requires the writer to use intelligent discretion (2003, p.96). There is a well-known story about
Oscar Wilde arriving exhausted at a dinner party. When asked why, he said: I spent the entire morning
putting a comma in and the afternoon taking it out (Harborough Sherard, 1902, p.72).
A comma is generally used in one of two ways: to help the reader by separating parts of a sentence; or to
separate items in a list. Both are intended to make the sentence clearer. For example, Let’s eat Dad is
decidedly worrying without a comma before Dad.
Children are regularly taught that commas are not used before ‘and’. We may be wiser to include the
word normally in the sentence, as there are times when commas before ‘and’ can be useful. Take a look at
this sentence:
My favourite jacket potato toppings are tuna, beans and bacon and cheese.
This sentence doesn’t make clear whether ‘bacon’ is a favourite and ‘cheese’ is another favourite, or
whether it is ‘bacon and cheese’ together or beans and bacon together. Adding commas clarifies things:
My favourite jacket potato toppings are tuna, beans, and bacon and cheese.
My favourite jacket potato toppings are tuna, beans and bacon, and cheese.
Using semi-colons (see later in the chapter) might clarify things still further so that there can be no
misunderstandings:
My favourite jacket potato toppings are tuna; beans; and bacon and cheese.
My favourite jacket potato toppings are tuna; beans and bacon; and cheese.
Avoiding the comma splice
The comma splice occurs when a comma is used to connect two independent clauses or a clause and an
independent phrase. Here is an example:
Jenny threw open the door, she was in a bad mood.
A simple rule of thumb to tell whether a comma is being used to ‘splice’ main clauses together is to see if
you could substitute a full stop. In this example, the two clauses make sense separately.
Jenny threw open the door. She was in a bad mood.
In this case a full stop works well, but it can lead to very staccato sentences and you may want to suggest a
closer link between the clauses. If you want to show that some sentences are more closely linked in meaning
than others, you could substitute a dash or a semi-colon:
Jenny threw open the door – she was in a bad mood.
Jenny threw open the door; she was in a bad mood.
It would also be possible to link the clauses by inserting a conjunction such as and, but, although, even
though, yet or because.
Jenny threw open the door even though she was in a bad mood.
Activity
Some comma-splicers will be good punctuators in many other respects. You may even be known to
comma-splice when you are under pressure. Look at the following sentences and identify which sentences
are correct, and where there is a comma splice. Choose ways of correcting them.
I hate writing assignments, I always leave them until the last minute.
Sally loves to keep fit, she runs a marathon at least once a year.
The team was determined to win, they had lost the last four matches.
Walking round Windermere, we saw a beautiful rainbow.
This a lovely cheesecake, you must give me the recipe.
Despite the bad weather, the village fete was a great success.
The following sentences are correct as they each have a main clause and a dependent phrase:
Walking round Windermere, we saw a beautiful rainbow.
Despite the bad weather, the village fete was a great success.
The other sentences have two clauses which could be linked, but a comma is not sufficient for this. They
could be punctuated as follows:
I hate writing assignments: I always leave them until the last minute.
Sally loves to keep fit: she runs a marathon at least once a year.
The team was determined to win: they had lost the last four matches.
This is a lovely cheesecake: you must give me the recipe.
Alternatively, you might use a dash rather than a colon.
Exclamation marks
Cut out all those exclamation marks, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote. An exclamation mark is like laughing at
your own jokes (cited in Clandfield, 2011).
Despite Scott Fitzgerald’s exhortation, the exclamation mark is having something of a renaissance. Texts,
tweets and e-mails in particular are often littered with exclamation marks; sometimes to the extent that they
have become a replacement for the full stop.
‘Hiya!! Look at this!!’
and the reply ‘Thanks!!!!’
This may simply be because the exclamation mark feels like a friendlier and more informal form of
punctuation. An e-mail that says ‘thanks for the tickets!!’ has much more emotion than ‘thanks for the
tickets’.
An exclamation mark is conventionally used at the end of a sentence. It can be:
Exclamative: What a nightmare!
Imperative: Go away!
Declarative: It’s a wrap!
An interjection to show strong emotion: Oh no!
We can draw on a wealth of material when children are learning about exclamation marks. They are highly
visible in environmental print: tabloid newspaper headlines provide a rich source and collecting these can be
a helpful addition to your working wall, or classroom display.
As with other aspects of punctuation, once you have taught children how to use them you are likely to
find that they are overused as they are tried out in different contexts. This is quite usual, but do remind the
children to beware of this!! Using exclamation marks too often reduces their power!!! Used judiciously, they
have greater impact.
Inverted commas
Truss (2003, p.150) recalls a conversation with Nigel Hall when he described the writing of a small boy
who regularly peppered his work with inverted commas. When asked to explain this, he replied, ‘because
it’s me who is doing all the talking!’
The placement of inverted commas when writing dialogue demands a lot of young writers:
•placing inverted commas around the words being said;
•starting each piece of speech with a capital letter except when the speech is broken up: ‘If you
think I’ve forgotten,’ said Suzy firmly, ‘you are very much mistaken.’ Direct speech which is split
into parts may only require a single capital letter (think of the direct speech as a sentence within a
sentence);
•punctuating the speech before we close it;
•starting a new line for each new speaker.
You may find that children have a better understanding of inverted commas if they are introduced to them
through texts with speech bubbles, and comics. Speech bubbles could be blanked out and children invited to
compose dialogue. Subsequently, they could write their own comic strip using speech bubbles, before
changing this into direct speech and adding text to show the identity of speakers. Take full advantage of the
wonderful picture books you may be reading to model the use of direct speech, such as Lauren Child’s
Beware of the Storybook Wolves where direct speech is shown in a different font. Wordless picture books
with rich, complex plots and narrative structures invite opportunities for children to freeze-frame scenes and
add dialogue. When you are using freeze-framing to explore texts, you might ask two children to stand
either side of the children in the frame and to hold up cards with inverted commas as each character explains
his or her thoughts.
In the case study below, note how the teacher makes use of texts rather than exercises to focus children’s
attention on punctuating direct speech.
Case study: learning to use inverted commas
Lloyd, a final year BA student, found, when listening to children in his Year 3 class read during shared and
guided reading, that many seemed to ignore inverted commas and failed to change tone or expression when
speech began or ended. He decided to use shared reading to focus children’s attention on the function of
inverted commas.
Lloyd chose a passage of dialogue from Roald Dahl’s Matilda and read it to the children, changing his
voice when Miss Trunchbull, Matilda or other characters spoke. He then allocated roles to children and
asked them to read only the words their characters said, while everyone else read all of the words which
were not direct speech. Occasionally, a few children either read beyond their speech or read into other
people’s speech, but almost everyone quickly grasped the idea that inverted commas surrounded the words
spoken.
Lloyd went on to develop a shared writing activity in which children used mini-whiteboards to write
suggested dialogue for an invented episode involving Matilda at school as a conversation progressed. Lloyd
asked for examples of what characters might say and wrote some on the board. He then asked children for
suggestions as to how words might have been said, for example, shouted Miss Trunchbull loudly; whispered
Amanda nervously. As the dialogue developed, Lloyd drew attention to punctuation, discussing the use of
commas, full stops, question marks and exclamation marks.
There are many other ways in which you might develop children’s understanding of correct usage of
inverted commas. You might follow up an activity such as Lloyd’s by giving children short extracts from
playscripts and asking them to rewrite them as direct speech. This is best done on a computer so that
children can focus on the key learning by cutting and pasting, rather than having to write everything out by
hand.
Curriculum links
Children should learn how to use inverted commas in direct speech from Year 3 and learn that they are also
known as inverted commas. It is important to explain that inverted commas can be single or double
(increasingly they tend to be single). As children develop their writing, they may sometimes need to use
inverted commas within inverted commas as below:
“I asked her to tell me where it was and she just said ‘I don’t know!’ in a really grumpy way,”
said James angrily.
On these occasions, we use whichever version of inverted commas we didn’t use around the main speech to
indicate the quotation within it.
Some teachers show classes how to remember the correct punctuation for direct speech with the
mnemonic: 66 Capital One of 4 99, which translates as:
•66 – open inverted commas;
•capital: speech begins with a capital letter (unless it is the second part of a sentence broken by he,
said etc. – see below);
•one of 4 (? ! ,.);
•99 (close inverted commas).
Of course, they might equally well teach them 6 Capital One of 4 9. If you use this mnemonic it is important
to remind children that the inverted commas are not really numbers at all, but just have the same shapes as 6
and 9.
Activity: punctuating direct speech
Use inverted commas and other punctuation in the following examples of direct speech. You should not
change any of the words, but sometimes you may need to change a letter from lower to upper case. See
below for answers.
1 He called loudly I want you to hurry up and get ready.
2 I will not she said put up with any more of this.
3 Before Christmas she said I was a happy person.
4 What do you mean by I don’t like it?
5 He asked do you know what the expression too many cooks spoil the broth means?
6 John said, David I do not like you.
7 John, said David, I do not like you.
8 Please let me go pleaded Sue I will wash up for a week if you do.
9 Don’t cried Bob let me catch you doing that again.
10 I like She Loves You best of all the Beatles’ songs said Paul.
Please note that some punctuation, such as the use of exclamation marks rather than, say, full stops, may
vary from author to author.
1. He called loudly, ‘I want you to hurry up and get ready!’
2. ‘I will not,’ she said, ‘put up with any more of this.’
3. ‘Before Christmas,’ she said, ‘I was a happy person.’
4. ‘What do you mean by “I don’t like it”?’ asked Jo.
5. He asked, ‘Do you know what the expression “too many cooks spoil the broth” means?’
6. John said, ‘David, I do not like you.’
7. ‘John,’ said David, ‘I do not like you.’
8. ‘Please let me go,’ pleaded Sue.’ I will wash up for a week if you do.’
9. ‘Don’t,’ cried Bob, ‘let me catch you doing that again!’
10. ‘I like “She Loves You” best of all the Beatles’ songs,’ said Paul.
Colons and semi-colons
In Year 6, children are introduced to the use of the colon and semi-colon.
The winner of the 2013 Booker Prize, Hilary Mantel, says she is addicted to semi-colons (cited in Truss,
2003). Rosen (2012) blogs that he tries to avoid them altogether, and expresses a concern that children might
think that they have to use them. He writes, I like short sentences. I like to punctuate them with full stops
and not semi-colons. I got this from a writer I like. His name is Charles Dickens. Moral of the story: don’t
read Charles Dickens, you might pick up bad habits.
The ‘rules’ governing the use of colons and semi-colons are flexible. Their purpose is to indicate a
stronger subdivision of a sentence than a comma, but less final than a full stop. The following guidelines
may be helpful.
Colon
The colon can be used to indicate that an example is following or to introduce a list, such as:
All students undertake to: attend all lectures and seminars, submit assignments on time, and meet
their tutor each term.
The use of the colon separates and highlights the list showing that each separate item is a requirement.
A colon is often preceded by a complete sentence and may also be used before a second clause that
expands or illustrates the first.
She was very tired: it was three in the morning.
He pulled back the curtains: bright sunlight lit up the room.
Semi-colons
A semi-colon can be used to separate two main clauses in a sentence instead of a conjunction or comma.
It is most suitable when the clauses are closely related in meaning. The following sentences make perfect
sense when joined together in this way.
I enjoyed the concert; it was a pleasure to be there.
Some students are well organised with assignments; others leave them until the last minute.
There may also be times when the semi-colon indicates the relationship between two sentences.
Sam vacuumed the floor for the third time.
The party had been a great success.
If this becomes Sam vacuumed the floor for the third time; the party had been a great success, the
relationship between the two can be inferred.
Semi-colons can also be used to separate items in a list, usually when these items consist of longer
phrases or where commas would not make separations clear enough, as in our earlier example of jacket
potato toppings.
He packed a large jar of yeast extract; a jar of his favourite marmalade; several tins of baked
beans; the largest box of tea he could find; and a packet of digestive biscuits.
Once children know how to use them, semi-colons can add a level of sophistication to their writing
Dashes and brackets
Dashes and brackets perform similar functions and can be used to replace colons, semi-colons and
commas. While a colon and semi-colon often suggest a link between the two parts of the sentence, dashes
and brackets can be less connected. They are useful for separating off parts of a sentence which introduce
information or ideas that are new, or are not essential to an understanding of the rest of the sentence.
Dashes
Dashes tend to be used in more informal writing such as personal e-mails or blogs, and can often be seen
in newspaper reporting. They are often, but not always, used in pairs.
Several hundred residents – like the couple in this photograph – have been left homeless by the
floods.
Dashes can also introduce after-thoughts, particularly those that are surprising or unexpected:
Everyone turned up for the wedding – even Sally.
They tend to be more conversational, and it is hard to use them inaccurately. Just remember to use them
sparingly when you are writing formally.
Brackets (parentheses)
A parenthesis is a word or phrase inserted into a sentence to explain, clarify or elaborate. It may be placed
in brackets or commas.
The English planning was due in (along with everything else) but it was nowhere near completion.
The lead singer (despite being well into his seventies) was amazing.
They can also be used to enclose a comment by the person writing.
Jas is (I believe) the best child for this role.
He was clearly furious about it (not that I blamed him).
The term parentheses can also refer to the brackets themselves.
Activity
Find different ways of punctuating the following to give very different meanings:
Go slow children
Private no fishing allowed
Shoot Jones
Scream a silly word every day
Go slow children: Go slow, children. Go, slow children. Go slow – children.
Private no fishing allowed: PRIVATE! No fishing allowed. Private? No, fishing allowed. Private –
no fishing allowed. Private, no fishing allowed.
Shoot Jones: SHOOT, Jones! Shoot Jones?
Scream, a silly word, every day. Scream a silly word every day. Scream a silly word – every day.
Hyphens
A hyphen can be used for a wide range of purposes.
•To join the different parts of a compound noun (see Chapter 2), such as city-centre, although it is
more usual for compound nouns to be written as single words:
−football;
−playground;
−greenhouse.
•In compound adjectives and longer phrases used as modifiers before nouns:
−The bad-tempered ladybird;
−A well-known singer;
−A five-year-old boy.
•In compound nouns where the second part is a short word like in, off, up or by:
−drive-in;
−kick-off;
−top-up;
−passer-by.
•With certain prefixes including co-, non-, and ex- that traditionally require hyphens:
−co-construct;
−ex-teacher;
−non-viable.
•It is quite a common mistake for people to write non as if it were a word in its own right (it
should be none when we use it as a word) by failing to hyphenate it to another word. Non is, of
course, a word in French (no), but in English it is a bound morpheme (see Chapter 2).
•When a compound formed from two nouns is made into a verb:
−Risk-taking;
−I am going strawberry-picking.
•When a compound verb form is made, either by adding a noun to make the original verb more
specific:
−I am going strawberry-picking.
−They enjoyed mountain-climbing.
−or by coupling two verbs together:
−She always blow-dries her hair.
−It is illegal to drink-drive.
•To add clarity:
−Deice and reignite are much harder to read than de-ice and re-ignite.
•To divide words at the end of a line of print. If children need to do this, encourage them to divide
the word between syllables to help the reader: for example sur-prise rather than su-rprise.
June Crebbin’s poem ‘River’ (in Foster, 2009) uses hyphens to create evocative compound nouns.
boat-carrier
bank-lapper
home-provider
tree-reflector
leaf-catcher
field-wanderer
stone-smoother
fast-mover
gentle-stroller
sun-sparkler
sea-seeker
Try finishing her ‘City River’ poem (in Corbett, 2006, p.254) in the same way:
wall
factory
backstreet
bridge
steps
park
summer
ducks
choppy
crows
onward
Bullet points
Bullet points are useful when we want to present a list, especially of items with several words, as
information can be easier to read than in a sentence. There are a different ways to present bullet points and
the key is to be consistent.
1. Bullet points that follow a colon
If there is an introductory sentence, a colon should follow the sentence and each bullet should begin with
a lower-case letter. Put a full stop after the last bullet point.
Bullet points can be used in different texts, including:
•essays;
•information texts;
•presentations.
When bullet points consist of more than one sentence, start each bullet point with a capital letter and end it
with a full stop. For example:
Before you hand in your work:
•Check that you haven’t made any spelling mistakes. You can use a computer spell checker to
check your spelling.
•Look carefully for any missing capital letters. Ask a friend to help you.
•Make sure that your writing is easy to read. If in doubt, cross the word out and write it again.
2. Bullet points that follow a heading
Bullet points that follow a heading should start with a capital letter and end with a full stop. For
example:
Rules
•Always be polite.
•Walk when you are in school.
•Open doors and hold them for other people.
Activity
In the two quotes from Winnie the Pooh below, the punctuation has been changed for symbols and the
capital letters have been removed. It will not take you long to work out what the symbols stand for, but this
can be an active way of encouraging children to engage with and talk about the punctuation marks on the
page.
1 #it*s snowing still~# said eeyore gloomily ¤ #so it is ¤ #and freezing ¤#
#is itª # #yes~# said eeyore ¤ #however~# he said~ brightening up a little~ #we haven*t had an
earthquake lately ¤#
2 #it is more fun to talk with someone who doesn*t use long~ difficult words but rather short~ easy
words like #what about lunchª #
1 ‘It’s snowing still,’ said Eeyore gloomily. ‘So it is.’
‘And freezing.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes,’ said Eeyore. ‘However,’ he said, brightening up a little, ‘we haven’t had an earthquake lately.’
2 ‘It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy
words like, “What about lunch?” ‘
Another investigative approach is to present children with a short, unpunctuated passage. Ask them to
read it through and then read it again, walking as they read. Invite them to pause briefly where the text
seems to indicate that a comma is required, and pause for longer when a full stop might be required. They
could begin working individually and go on to discuss with partners where other punctuation may be
needed. Avoid asking them to write it out in their best handwriting, unless you are focusing on handwriting
rather than punctuation.
Teaching punctuation
Learning to punctuate is something we continue to do as we become more sophisticated writers. It is a hard
skill to master, because it is not discrete but an integral part of effective writing. Exercises and worksheets
are unlikely to succeed in helping children to punctuate well, no matter how engaging and colourful they
are. Developing a sophisticated knowledge of punctuation needs to occur in the context of children’s
deepening understanding of the craft of writing, and the importance of making meaning clear to the reader.
Consider trying the following tried and tested approaches.
•Explicitly draw attention to punctuation in reading. Help children to see the power of punctuation
and how it helps writers to convey meaning.
•Think aloud as you model writing, so that children are able to see and hear the choices you make
as you punctuate writing.
•Make writing meaningful. If children write for authentic purposes and audiences, making sense
will genuinely matter.
•Draw children’s attention to how changes in punctuation impact on meaning. Include the use of
word play, puzzles and investigations to do this.
•Provide opportunities for children to write for a wide range of purposes: challenge them to think
about their use of punctuation and talk about what is most appropriate to make the meaning clear
to the reader.
•Establish writing or response partners, so that all children have the opportunity to hear their work
read aloud and see and hear where punctuation needs adding, changing or deleting.
•Provide opportunities for children to discuss punctuation in their writing with you and their peers.
Learning outcomes review
You should now be confident about what you need to know as a primary teacher to teach punctuation well,
and be confident in your own subject knowledge. Punctuation is complex, and you will know that we cannot
simply teach children how to punctuate and expect them to apply this knowledge accurately throughout their
writing. Demarcating simple sentences is the first building block (Hall, 1999). You will also be aware that
although there are some rules governing punctuation, other things are a matter of choice, and this is one of
the many challenges we face when we teach children to punctuate. Most importantly, you will know that
teaching punctuation is integral to teaching good writing and is never an end in itself.
Self-assessment questions
Punctuate the sentences below. You may need to change some lower-case letters to upper case, and you may
even wish to use italics for some words or phrases.
1 david julie rosemary and gill sat in trafalgar square
2 sam who was thirty two had thinning blond hair
3 oh no cried sue as she saw the damage bill had done to her new bmw
4 you shouted the teacher have the manners of a two year old
5 rimmer sat miserably in the control room of red dwarf
Select the punctuation mark that is used for each of the following purposes.
1 To separate the different parts of a sentence and provide clarity for the reader.
2 To separate two main clauses in a sentence.
3 Before a second clause that expands or illustrates the first.
4 At the end of an interjection to indicate strong feeling or emotion.
5 In informal writing to replace brackets and other punctuation marks.
Choose from the list below:
full stop question mark exclamation mark
semi-colon colon dash
Further reading
Jeffries, S. (2009) The joy of exclamation marks! Available from:
www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/29/exclamation-mark-punctuation
A light-hearted and interesting viewpoint on the use of exclamation marks.
Truss, L. (2003) Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. London: Profile
Books.
For an entertaining and interesting look at punctuation, with lots of examples, Lynn Truss’s book is ideal.
Waugh, D, Allott, K, Waugh, R, English, E and Bulmer, E (2014) The Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar
app. Morecambe: Children Count Ltd. (available through the App Store)
This app. provides guidance and activities on all aspects of grammar, spelling and punctuation.
References
APA (2010) Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th edition). Washington, DC:
APA.
Brien, J. (2012) Teaching Primary English. London: Sage.
Bunting, R. (1997) Teaching about Language in the Primary Years. London: David Fulton.
Clandfield, L. (2011) Online writing is great!!! Available from: www.macmillan
dictionaryblog.com/online-writing-is-great (accessed 18.6.13).
Corbett, P. (2006) The Works Key Stage 1. London: Macmillan Children’s Books.
Crystal, D. (1987) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Crystal, D. (1996) Discover Grammar. Harlow: Longman.
DfE (2013) The national curriculum in England Key stages 1 and 2 framework document. London: DfE. Available
from:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/335133/PRIMARY_national_cur
riculum_220714.pdf
Foster, J. (2009) The Works 8. London: Macmillan Children’s Books.
Graddol, D., Leith, D. and Swann, J. (1996) English History, Diversity and Change. London: Routledge
with the Open University.
Graham, J. and Kelly, C. (2007) Writing Under Control. London: David Fulton.
Greenspan, S. (2011) 11 Secret Meanings Behind Punctuation in Text Messages. Available from:
www.wired.com/underwire/2011/06/secret-meanings-text-message- punctuation/(accessed 18.6.13).
Hall, N. (1999) Punctuation in the Primary School. Reading: Reading and Language Information Centre.
Hall, N. (2001) Developing understanding of punctuation with young readers and writers. In Evans, J. (ed.)
The Writing Classroom: Aspects of Writing and the Primary Child 3–11. London: David Fulton.
Hall, N. (2005) The Development of Punctuation Knowledge in Children Aged Seven to Eleven: ESRC Full
Research Report, R000238348. Swindon: ESRC.
Harborough Sherard, R. (1902) Oscar Wilde: The Story and an Unhappy Friendship, with Portraits and
Facsimile Letters. London: Hermes Press.
Jeffries, S. (2009) The joy of exclamation marks! Available from:
www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/29/exclamation-mark-punctuation (accessed 18.6.13)
Kress, G. (1982) Learning to Write. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Rosen. M. (2012) Punctuation: semi colon terrorism from the DfE. Available from:
http://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/punctuation-semi-colon-terrorism-from.html
(accessed 18.6.13).
Truss, L. (2003) Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. London: Profile
Books.
