:Punctuation Check
Trend Task
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Approach:  Station Level: Year 4
Focus:  Identifying and correcting punctuation errors.
Resources: None.

244KB
Questions/instructions:
A lot of punctuation has been left out of this piece of writing — things like full-stops, commas and speech marks. Try to put in the punctuation.
Today I saw something funny a girl and a
dinosaur were in a little car they looked very
happy together I called my brother and he
came running to have a look I haven’t seen
a dinosaur in a car before he said


% responses
2002 '98
y4
Line 1:
full stop after ‘funny’
24 (29)
capital A for first ‘a’
17 (19)
Line 2:
full stop after ‘car’
40 (41)
capital T for ‘they’
30 (27)
Line 3:
full stop after ‘together’
66 (70)
Line 4:
full stop after ‘look’
52 (59)
open speech marks before ‘I’
38 (34)
Line 5:
immediately after ‘before’ –
,”
3 (8)
”,
3 (25)
” (no comma)
25
full stop after ‘said’
76 (78)
Incorrect punctuation added:
none
24 (34)
1
21 (20)
2 or 3
36 (26)
4 to 36
19 (20)
Total score:

10–12
6 (8)
8–9
15 (16)
6–7
23 (27)
4–5
29 (25)
2–3
19 (19)
0–1
8 (5)

Commentary:
Only 31 percent of year 4 students earned more than half of the maximum score on this punctuation task. There was very little change overall between 1998 and 2002.
   
 
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