What is this skill?
Editing is the last step of writing: reading your own sentence slowly and fixing what is wrong. Fifth graders are asked to catch several kinds of mistakes at once, since a real sentence does not come labeled "this one is a capital letter problem." The practice mixes the mistakes on purpose. Some are about capital letters ("We visited Chicago last summer," not chicago or Summer). Some are about verbs (The dogs were barking all night, "She doesn't like spinach," "Every student have a locker"). Some are about pronouns ("He and I went to the store," not "Me and him"). Others cover the right word (They're coming over for dinner), commas, quotation marks ("Maya said, "Let's go!""), past tense (Leo ran to the bus, not runned) and plurals (The children played outside, not childs).
Most questions ask which of three or four sentences is written correctly. Three show one sentence and ask what the mistake is: "the bus arrives at eight o'clock" is missing a capital letter, "We goed to the museum on Friday" has the wrong verb form, and "My favorite subject is Science" has a capital letter it does not need. Four yes-or-no questions ask whether a sentence is written correctly or has a mistake, such as "Them are my favorite shoes" and "The teacher gave Noah and me a sticker."
Why it matters
Finding a mistake is a different skill from avoiding one. A writer who is deep in an idea does not see the typo, and a child who has practiced reading with an editor's eye catches slips that they would otherwise hand in.
This practice pulls together everything a child has learned so far in spelling and grammar. That is the point of the skill: knowing a rule in isolation is not the same as using it when a sentence arrives with no label.
Editing also builds confidence. A child who can say "this sentence needs a capital letter and a different verb" is in charge of their own writing, and is less likely to feel that corrections are criticism.
Common mistakes
- Fixing only the first mistake. Many sentences, in real writing, have more than one. Read once for capital letters and end marks, once for verbs and once for words and commas.
- Trusting the ear for pronoun pairs. "Me and him went" sounds natural to many children. Take the other person out: "Him went" does not work, so "He and I went" is right.
- Over-correcting. A child who has just learned capital letters may capitalize a subject such as science, which does not need one in the middle of a sentence. The practice includes this one on purpose.
- Calling a correct sentence wrong. Several of the sentences are right as written, and children should learn that "no mistake" is a fine answer to an editing task.
How to help at home
- Let your child edit a short note you wrote with a deliberate mistake or two. Children enjoy catching a grown-up and learn the habit with no pressure.
- Teach a three-pass checklist and put it near the desk: capitals and end marks, then verbs, then words and commas. Read the sentence aloud once for each pass.
- Have your child read their own writing aloud, slowly, pointing at each word. The eye skips errors that the voice trips over.
- Use the printable worksheet as a warm-up before homework and talk through the wrong choices. Each one is a real mistake children make.
Worked examples
These are real questions from the Tutorsaurus be the editor practice, with the answers worked out.
Example 1
Which mistake does this sentence have?
the bus arrives at eight o'clock.
Choices: Wrong verb, Missing end mark, Missing capital letter
Answer: Missing capital letter. The first word, the, should start with a capital letter.
Example 2
Is this sentence written correctly?
Every student have a locker.
Answer: Has a mistake. Every student is singular, so it should be "Every student has a locker."
Example 3
Which sentence is punctuated correctly?
Choices: Maya said, "Lets go!", Maya said "Let's go!", Maya said, "Let's go!"
Answer: Maya said, "Let's go!". Let's needs an apostrophe for let us, and a comma comes after said.
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.