'Apostrophes' tutor notes

The aim of the apostrophes topic area is to help learners revise the use of apostrophes to show where letters are missing in informal writing and to demonstrate that one thing belongs to something else.

How does this tie in with the curriculums?

• England
  Rs/L1.2 - Understand that grammatical clues can be used to make sense of individual words and of complete sentences.
  Know and use the term 'apostrophe'. Understand the function of the omissive apostrophe to indicate contracted word style.
• Wales
  As England.
• Northern Ireland
  As England.
• Scotland
  See www.aloscotland.com for details of the Scottish curriculum.

In the Skillswise module you'll find:

Apostrophes factsheet
The facts about apostrophes, with examples, on one 'print-out-and-keep' sheet.

Apostrophes games
There are two games in this section, both of which have a similar structure. Both games require some level of familiarity with a keyboard, as answers have to be typed in. If you don't get all the answers right, your friend gets gunged.
Please also note that students have to click the cursor into the text box before they can type the answer. Ideally, the cursor would appear automatically in the text box, but unfortunately this isn't possible in Flash version 4 (the software that is the spec for further education).

TOP TIP! To see the game completely full screen, press the F11 key on the keyboard. This takes away the distraction of the top browser bar. To bring the browser bar back, just press F11 again!

Apostrophes activity - 'Cutting a Dash'
We are sorry but we have had to remove the BBC Radio 4 programme about apostrophes, 'Cutting a dash', from this website. This is because of changes in copyright. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Apostrophes quiz
The learner can choose their level. Level A is the easiest, level C the hardest.
Students can 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. Once printed students can write their name on the certificate.

Apostrophes worksheets
There are two worksheets in this section. They are meant to be printable resources to carry on the work learners have done online. The two worksheets are based on sports stories, where students have to decide where to put the apostrophes.

Technical help:

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

• Flash
  The game in this topic section uses Flash. 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 the same learning points are covered in the quiz and in the worksheets and factsheets.
If you are new to the web, why not try the BBC WebWise online course, Becoming WebWise? It's free, you can do it in your own time from any computer and it will take you through everything you need to know to use the web successfully in your teaching.
Get WebWise.

You can find out more about the technical requirements for Skillswise in our Help - Technical Information section.

Taking it further:

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

On the web:
Here's a few suggestions of other places on the web that you might find useful resources that you can adapt for teaching apostrophes.

• Live chat
  Print out some interviews with celebrities at BBC Live Chat as texts that you could use to highlight the apostrophes that indicate a letter (or letters) have been omitted.
• BBC News
  Print out a news story from BBC News, then ask learners to rewrite the story using apostrophes so it reads less formally.
• Home for abused apostrophes
  Pictures of real-life examples of cruelly misused apostrophes.

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