What is this skill?
This is an editing skill. A fourth grader looks at a finished sentence and checks three things that teachers often mark on a writing sample or a report card under "conventions": capital letters, apostrophes in contractions, and a verb tense that stays put. None of them are new rules. What changes in fourth grade is that the child is expected to catch the slips in their own writing without being told where to look.
The capital letter questions cover the first word of a sentence and proper nouns: names (Jamal, Dr. Patel, Aunt Rosa), places (Denver, Maple Street, Lincoln Park), days and months (Monday, Friday, June), holidays (Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July, New Year's Day) and the words of a book title. They also cover words that should stay lowercase, such as seasons ("In the Fall" is wrong), hospital and school, and aunt after "his." The contraction questions ask which form fills a blank, such as can't, won't, we'll and they're, how to write "should not," and which two words make "we've," with its and it's in several of them. The tense questions give a sentence with two verbs, such as "Yesterday, Zoe opened the box and ___ a puppy inside," and the child keeps the second verb in the same time as the first. The last group shows one sentence and asks what is wrong with it: a missing capital letter, a missing apostrophe or a tense shift. There is also a sorting game with tuesday, august, chicago, summer, river and teacher.
Why it matters
These three checks are the ones that make writing look careless when they are missed, even when the ideas are good. A reader trips over "i went to chicago on saturday" before they get to what happened there, and a story that jumps from "ran" to "runs" leaves the reader unsure when it all took place.
Editing is also a different job from writing. While a child is getting ideas down, their attention is on the story, and that is where it should be. Learning to go back with a short checklist, one thing at a time, is the habit this skill builds. It is the same habit older students use on every essay.
The skill also ties earlier lessons together. Capitals and end marks start in first grade, contractions and past tense in second grade, and the progressive tenses in fourth. Here they meet in one sentence, which is how they show up in real writing, and fifth grade editing builds on the same checks.
Common mistakes
- Capitalizing words that feel important but are not names, such as seasons, school subjects or "Hospital." Ask: is this the name of one particular person, place, day or holiday? If not, it stays lowercase.
- Forgetting that a word like aunt or grandma is a name only when it is used as one. "We visited Aunt Rosa" gets a capital; "Mateo called his aunt" does not.
- Mixing up its and it's, or their and they're. Read the sentence with the long form, "it is" or "they are." If it still makes sense, the apostrophe belongs.
- Starting a sentence in the past and drifting into the present halfway through, as in "We went to the zoo and see the lions." Find both verbs and ask whether they tell the same time.
How to help at home
- Write a short note to your child with three slips in it, one of each kind, and let them be the editor with a colored pencil. Then swap: they write the note and you hunt for the mistakes.
- Make a contraction pair game on index cards: "will not" on one card, won't on another. Mix them up and match them, saying where the apostrophe goes each time.
- When your child writes anything, a card, a list or a school assignment, ask them to read it once only for capitals, then once only for verbs. One job per read is easier than all at once.
- Talk about yesterday at dinner and ask your child to retell it starting with "Yesterday." Listen for a verb that slips into the present, and point it out gently.
Worked examples
These are real questions from the Tutorsaurus capitals, contractions and tense practice, with the answers worked out.
Example 1
Which word fills the blank? Jamal (blank) come to the party because he is sick.
Jamal ___ come to the party because he is sick.
Choices: cant, ca'nt, can't
Answer: can't. Can't is short for cannot. The apostrophe takes the place of the missing letters.
Example 2
Is this sentence capitalized correctly?
My brother and I watched the parade on the Fourth of July.
Answer: Correct. The Fourth of July is a holiday, so its main words get capitals. Brother is not a name, so it stays lowercase.
Example 3
Which sentence has correct capital letters?
Choices: On new year's day, Mateo called his Aunt in Mexico., On New Year's Day, Mateo called his Aunt in mexico., On New Year's Day, Mateo called his aunt in Mexico.
Answer: On New Year's Day, Mateo called his aunt in Mexico. New Year's Day is a holiday and Mexico is a country, so they get capitals. After his, aunt is not used as a name, so it stays lowercase.
Printable worksheet (PDF) — one page of questions from this practice that work on paper, easier ones first, with an answer key on page 2. Free to print, no sign-up.