Grade 5 English: Punctuation and apostrophes poster

1Capital letters and end marks

• Start every sentence with a capital letter.
• End a statement with a full stop (.), a question with a question mark (?) and a strong feeling with an exclamation mark (!).

2Commas in a list

• Put a comma between the items in a list.
• Do not put a comma before the last and.
• Do not put a comma after the last item.

3Speech marks

Put speech marks round the words that are spoken. The first spoken word has a capital letter. A comma, question mark or exclamation mark goes inside the speech marks.

4Apostrophes in short forms

An apostrophe shows where letters are missing.

5Apostrophes for ownership

• One owner: add ‘s: the girl’s books.
• Many owners ending in s: add the apostrophe after the s: the girls’ books.
• Plural without s: add ‘s: the children’s toys.

6Its, it’s and plurals

• its shows ownership: The bird built its nest.
• it’s is short for it is: It’s a lovely day.
• Do not use an apostrophe for a plural: three mangoes, not three mango’s.