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“No Excuses” Conventions
Grades 1 through Grade 5
GRADE 1
• Spaces are left between words
• Most words are written in lower case.
• First word of a sentence begins with a capital letter.
• Names begin with capital letters.
• The word “I” is capitalized.
• Sentences end with periods, question marks or exclamation points.
GRADE 2
Grade 1 skills as well as…
PUNCTUATION
Period (.)
• End of sentence
• After abbreviations
• Between dollars and cents
Question mark (?)
• After a question Exclamation Point (!)
• After an “excited” word
• After a sentence showing strong feeling
Comma (,)
• Between city and state
• Between day and year
• After introductory words
• After the greeting in a letter
• After the closing in a letter
• Between words in a series
CAPITALIZATION
• First words in a sentence
• Speaker’s first word
• Names and Titles (Dr. Jackie Small)
• The word “I”
• Important words in titles of books, stories and poems
• Days, months and holidays
• Names of places
Parts of Speech
Nouns
• Persons, places, things
• Singular or plural
• Common or proper
• Possessive
Verbs
• Action/linking/helping
G:Curr&InstrLanguage ArtsReading ModelNo Excuses Conventions.doc
GRADE 3
PUNCTUATION
Grade 2 skills as well as:
Period (.)
• As a decimal in a number Comma (,)
• For large numbers
• In dates and addresses
• In a compound sentence
• Between describing words Colon (:)
• Between numbers in time
Apostrophe (‘)
• In contractions
• To form possessives
Quotation Marks (“”)
• To set off spoken words
Hyphen (-)
• In fractions
Parentheses ( )
• To add information
Underlining and Italics
• For titles
• For specific words
CAPITALIZATION
• Proper nouns and proper adjectives (Swedish pancake)
• Words used as nouns
• Titles used with names
• Abbreviations
• Common abbreviations
• Initials
• State abbreviations
• Address abbreviations
• Titles
• First words
• Days and months
• Geographic names
Parts of Speech
Adjectives
• Describe a noun or a pronoun
• Comparing two nouns or pronouns
Adverbs
• Describes a verb
Pronouns
• Accurate, general reference to a noun, individual or group earlier in the text.
Verbs
Uses appropriate tense (write, wrote, writing, written)
Grades 4 and 5
Grade 3 skills as well as…
CONVENTIONS
Comma (,)
§ Set off interruptions
§ Set off dialogue
§ Between 2 independent clauses
§ In letter writing
§ To separate adjectives
Colon (:)
§ After a salutation
§ In a business letter
Hyphen (-)
§ In compound words
Apostrophe (‘)
§ To form plurals
Quotation Marks
§ To set off direct quotations
§ Placement of punctuation
§• (typically inside quotation marks)
§ For “special” words
§ To punctuate titles
Question Mark (?)
§ To show doubt
Exclamation Point (!)
§ To express strong feeling
CAPITALIZATION
§ Proper nouns and adjectives
§ Words used as names
§ Historical Events
§ Days and months
§ Names of religions, nationalities, languages
§ Names of businesses
NUMBERS
§ Numbers one to nine written (I have two sisters.)
§ Very large numbers written (A million ants marched toward the picnic basket.)
§ Numbers at the beginning of a sentence are written.
(Seventeen years ago I came to America.)
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