Edit names, letters, contractions, possession and spelling

Learning goal: Edit writing for capitalized special names, commas in letter greetings and closings, apostrophes in common contractions and possessives, and useful spelling patterns. Consult a beginning dictionary when a pattern does not settle the spelling. Apply the checks to a complete piece of writing.

Read this draft letter: “dear mia / On monday, I visited columbus. I can't find my brother's blue cap. We will look again before labor day. / your friend / Leo.” The slashes mark line breaks for this exercise; they are not punctuation to keep in a finished letter. Some words already have correct apostrophes, while several names and letter features need attention.

Capitalize the first word of a sentence and the pronoun I. Also capitalize special names. Columbus is a geographic name for a city; city is an ordinary category word unless it belongs to a full special name. Labor Day names a holiday, while holiday by itself is not capitalized merely because it is important. Product names also use capitals, such as Crayola crayons: Crayola is the product name, and crayons is the general item. This example teaches a name's form and is not a recommendation to buy that product.

A friendly letter commonly begins with a greeting such as “Dear Mia,” on its own line. The comma follows the addressee's name in this greeting. A closing such as “Your friend,” also ends with a comma, followed by the writer's name on the next line. Capitalize the first word of the greeting and closing. The comma does not go after every word: “Dear, Mia” would interrupt this greeting incorrectly.

An apostrophe can show omitted letters in a contraction. Can not is usually written cannot as one word, and cannot contracts to can't. Do not becomes don't, I am becomes I'm and we will becomes we'll. In don't, the apostrophe marks the missing o from not. It does not mean that the word belongs to someone. Read the expanded form to check the contraction's meaning.

An apostrophe can also show possession. “My brother's cap” means the cap belongs to one brother. “Mia's drawing” means a drawing belonging to Mia in this example. Compare “two brothers” with “one brother's cap.” The s in brothers makes a plural; the apostrophe plus s in brother's shows possession. Do not add an apostrophe to every word that ends in s.

Its and it's require attention. It's expands to it is or it has. In “The basket has its label,” its shows possession and has no apostrophe. Try expanding “The basket has it's label” to “The basket has it is label.” The result does not fit the intended meaning, so use its. This check is useful because the two words sound alike.

Spelling patterns can guide a new word without guaranteeing every English spelling. Boy and toy share oy for the vowel sound at the end. Boil and coin use oi inside the word. Cage and page end in ge, while badge and bridge use dge after the short vowel sound in these examples. Say the word, notice known sound-spelling patterns and compare a familiar example.

When unsure, consult a beginning dictionary or a teacher-selected digital dictionary. Find the entry, compare each letter and correct your written word. A spell-check suggestion is a clue to inspect, not proof that the selected word has your intended meaning. If you mean a cap, replacing it with cape because software suggests it would change the item.

The letter diagram shows a corrected greeting, all three body sentences and the closing on separate lines, so the weekday, the city and the holiday each appear with their capitals. It highlights the jobs of capitals, commas and apostrophes through the supplied wording. The body is an original fictional letter, so learning its punctuation does not establish that Leo actually visited Columbus.

Worked letter edit: Write “Dear Mia,” at the top. In the body, capitalize Monday, Columbus and Labor Day. End with “Your friend,” and put Leo on the next line with no period after the name. Keep can't and brother's because they already express cannot and possession correctly.

Worked name check: In “i drew the lake with crayola crayons on labor day,” capitalize I, the product name Crayola and the holiday name Labor Day. Lake stays lowercase because no special lake is named; in Lake Erie, both words belong to a geographic name. Crayons stays lowercase because it is the general item, not the product name.

Worked apostrophe decision: “The dogs ran” needs a plural with no apostrophe. “The dog's bowl” can name a bowl belonging to one dog and needs apostrophe-s. Ask whether the writer means a number or ownership before editing.

Worked spelling check: A learner writes boi for the spoken word boy. Compare toy, then check boy in a beginning dictionary. Correct the spelling and read the sentence to confirm its meaning rather than merely copy a letter sequence.

Guided practice: Edit the model in separate passes: names and sentence starts; greeting and closing commas; contractions and possession; then spellings. Explain a reason for every change and preserve features that were already correct.

Independent writing: Write a short friendly letter using a geographic or holiday name, one contraction and one common possessive. Include the greeting, body, closing and signature. Add a sentence about a specifically named product only if it fits your message. Check two uncertain spellings in a print or digital beginning dictionary and record the corrected words.

Feedback: Look for transfer in the learner's own letter, not only corrected model errors. If apostrophes appear in ordinary plurals, contrast two dogs with one dog's bowl. If a dictionary correction produces a different word, return to the intended meaning. Record prompts and reference-tool help separately from independently recalled conventions.