'Capital letters' tutor notes

The aim of the 'Capital letters' topic area is to understand the principles of when capital letters should be used.

How does this tie in with the curriculums?

• England
  Ws/E3.3 - use punctuation correctly, e.g. capital letters, full stops, question marks, exclamation marks:
  understand that these are the complete family of sentence boundary markers used in continuous text written in complete sentences
  
• Wales
  As England
• Northern Ireland
  As England
• Scotland
  See www.aloscotland.com for details of the Scottish curriculum.

Please note that the BBC is not responsible for the content of other websites.

In this Skillswise module you'll find...

Capital letters - game
There are two games available here.
'Play your caps right' requires players to 'shoot' the correct choice of letter missing from a sentence. There is an easy and a hard option to try.
'Blown away' is the same game format, but with a vocational health and beauty twist to it.
Please do tell us what you think of these games.

Capital letters - quiz
The learner can choose their level. Level A is the easiest and level C the hardest. Level A asks learners to spot which word always needs a capital letter. Levels B and C asks learners to choose which sentence is missing a capital letter.
Students may print out a certificate if they score 50% or more in the quiz. This will appear as a link on the results page - click on the link and the certificate will appear in a new window. Learners can write their name in once the certificate is printed.

Capital letters - factsheets
There is one factsheet in this section. This lists simple lower case letters and capitals. It explains that every sentence starts with a capital letter, so there should always be a capital letter after a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark. It goes on to explain that capitals are also needed for the word "I", for names - of people, places, things - and for initials. Examples of each are given.

Capital letters - worksheets
There are two printable worksheets with answersheets in this section. The first looks at matching simple (lower case) letters to their capital letters, while the second asks learners to copy sentences, adding capital letters where they are needed.

Technical help:

To get the most out of this topic area you need the following 'plug-ins':

• Flash 7
  The game in this topic section uses Flash 7. This is free to download and should only take a few minutes. You can follow the BBC WebWise instructions to download it to your machine.
  Find out more.
  If you don't have Flash 7 the same learning points are covered in the quiz, worksheets and factsheets.
  
  Please note: the flash game in this section is quite graphical. Please allow about 1 minute for the game to download. Download times will vary according to your connection speed and how busy the network is.
  
  
• Adobe PDF documents
  Note that you will need the free Adobe Acrobat software on your machine to view PDF documents.
  
  
• FlashPapers
  We have provided the worksheets and factsheets as both PDF files and FlashPaper files. For screenreader users you should choose the FlashPaper version as these are designed to be screenreader accessible. If you don't need a screenreader it doesn't matter which type you use.
  
  If you want to print the factsheets we recommend you use the PDF version provided. However, if you do want to print a FlashPaper, you must use the print button within the FlashPaper window (top right). Your internet browser can't tell what size to print these kind of documents, so if you use the print option in the 'file' menu it may print out completely the wrong size.
  
  

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Taking it further:

With Skillswise:
Don't forget to check out the Skillswise Lesson plans and Teaching inspirations areas for more ideas about teaching capital letters.

Making sentences
Practise putting texts into sentences using capital letters and full stops and learn to spot what makes a sentence. Spot sentences, make sentences and add full stops and capital letters to texts.

On the web:
On www.bbc.co.uk: A good game for the kids here:
Magic Key game
Your job is to change ordinary lower case letters into capitals to complete the game.

Here are a few suggestions of other places on the web that you might find useful resources that you can adapt for teaching capital letters.

Quizzes and exercises on capital letters:

Put the capital letters in the correct places.
Put the capital letters in the correct places, then click to see correct answers.

Rewrite each word that needs capital letters.
Click on 'Answer' button to show what you should have written.

Add missing capital letters to a paragraph.
Click on 'Paragraph' to see paragraph without capitals, then 'Answer' to see correct version.

Game matching lower case to capital letter.
Aimed at kids, but useful practice. Ideal for Family Learning.

Is it a capital or lower case?
Choose whether letter is ordinary lower case or capital upper case.

Add capital letters where needed to these sentences.

Add capital letters where needed.
Scroll down page for exercises.

Use capital letters where needed.
Type each sentence using capital letters where needed.
Put a full stop or a question mark at the end of each sentence.

Change the appropriate letters to capital letters
Scroll down to 'Practice' 1 and 2.

Add full stops and capital letters to these sentences.
Next, write some of your own sentences. Printable Worksheet.

Please note that the BBC is not responsible for the content of other websites.