Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Any Recommendations for Teaching Punctuation?

So, of course for my kid to learn anything I have to figure out how to teach it to him myself or outsource because the school just seems incapable. Yes, I am being snide. But, really. My kid has all year not been able to punctuate his writing. Does not seem to understand periods, commas, capital letters, etc. He's great with words, his actual sentence structure is great (although you can't tell they are sentences b/c no periods and no capitals), his vocab is excellent. But, no punctuation. I think to myself, 'well, school will teach him this, right?' I mean, he spends all day with TEACHERS, right? They should be able to teach him this basic skill, right? No. Apparently not. He's made no progress. He just gets graded down repeatedly for "conventions" but he never seems to get taught them. SIGH. I suppose they threw this ball in my court. Again. Yeah, and people wonder I am losing faith. Incidentally, he's dysgraphic. Is that related to his just not picking this up through reading?

Anyway, does anyone have any resources on how to teach this skill? Websites, curriculums, etc? I Have clay Thompson but, so far, no material on punctuation (he loves that curriculum btw!) I am very good at this stuff (despite my constant typos here but I just do not have a "teaching way." I am not good at explaining it or teaching it to a child so I need help. You'd think the professional teachers would have found a way to teach him this! Sometimes I wonder why I have him in school at all...

The Perfect Pop-up Punctuation Book may be fun? One caution: the "period" is called "full stop" for a wee bit o' British.

Enchanted Learning has a plethora of online lessons, worksheets, and homework helps, including punctuation: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/grammar/punctuation/

You could try Victor Borge's phonetic punctuation which still sticks in my mind to this day:


Makes it more salient.

Thanks all! These are great! I knew I could count on this board . Zen, lovin' Borge's phonetic punctuation... I think he will really get a kick out of that lol

Oh, Zen -- my son just referred to that in conversation a couple of days ago, and we haven't watched it in years!

I was surprised at how many he remembered -- my memory doesn't work that well, because I can only recall one or two. That's why I have to watch it again. And again.

Aaah, I remember that from the Electric Company when I was a kid! I can't wait to show DD and DS, I'm sure they will love it.