ABSTRACT

This chapter deals with the main forms of punctuation that need to be teach in the primary classroom. With an increasingly literate population, the purpose of punctuation shifted from supporting oratory to supporting meaning by focusing on separating grammatical elements of the sentence. Punctuation, along with spelling and capitalisation, comes under the definition of orthography rather than grammar, as it has more to do with the way we write things down than the structure of the language itself. Punctuation choices can convey formality or informality. Capital letters serve the following purposes: they indicate the start of a sentence; they indicate proper nouns; they indicate the personal pronoun; they indicate the names of languages and nationalities; and they indicate important words in titles of books, plays and films. We need to use speech punctuation whenever we write dialogue. We might choose to use bullet points when we're looking for a layout that is clear and easy to navigate.