Supporting students' literacy skills

1. Check your work!
Spellings
Punctuation
Grammar
Check your work!
Sentence Types
Paragraphs
Genre Features
Literacy
Tips
Perspectives
Chalfonts Community College
Past, present or future?
First person:
First person is when the text
is written from one
characterʼs perspective.
I was as still as a mouse, as I
watched them walk into the
room.
Second person:
Second person is when the
text is written to include the
reader, making it more
personal.
You can make a difference
by giving your time and
energy to the project.
Third person:
Third person is when the text
is written in such a way that
the narrator is all-knowing.
They both looked shocked. It
was running towards them,
far quicker than they had
expected.
Past tense:
Where verbs are written to
show that events occured in
the past.
It happened yesterday.
Present tense:
Where verbs are written to
show that events are
occuring right now.
It is happening today.
Future tense:
Where verbs are written to
show that events are going
to occur in the future.
It will happen tomorrow.
Homophones
Advice / Advise
Affect / Effect
Aloud / Allowed
Bare / Bear
Brake / Break
Coarse / Course
Fare / Fair
Find / Fined
Groan / Grown
Here / Hear
Hole / Whole
Lose / Loose
Mail / Male
New / Knew
Peace / Piece
Pair / Pare / Pear
Principal / Principle
Rain / Reign / Rein
Road / Rode
Quiet / Quite
Sight / Site
Stationary / Stationery
Steel / Steal
There / Their / Theyʼre
Threw / Through
To / Too / Two
Waist / Waste
Weak / Week
Wear / Where
Weather / Whether
Commonly misspelled
words
Acceptable Accidentally
Acquire Amateur
Apparent Argument
Believe Category
Column Committed
Conscience Conscious
Deduce Definite
Discipline Embarrass
Environment Existence
Experience Foreign
Government Grateful
Guarantee Height
Hierarchy Immediate
Interpretation Independent
Intelligence Leisure
Liaison Library
Manoeuvre Medieval
Miniature Mischievous
Naive Neighbour
Noticeable Occasionally
Opportunity Playwright
Possession Precede
Prejudice Pronunciation
Questionnaire Receive
Recommend Referred
Relevant Rhyme
Rhythm Separate
Twelfth Weird
Punctuation
.
ʻ
:
""
!
,
An apostrophe replaces
omitted letters and shows
omission or possession.
Theyʼre Tonyʼs shoes.
A colon is used to introduce a
list or emphasise a
word/phrase.
She had one love: reading.
Speech marks are used to
show that someone is
speaking and to distinguish a
quotation.
“To be or not to be, that is
the question.”
A comma separates clauses in
a sentence and items in a list.
Because it was dark, they lost
their way.
- A hyphen is used to indicate
()
?
;
an extended pause or to join
two words together.
He looked at her - all the
while wondering who she
was.
Brackets are used to separate
extra or less important
information.
Harry Potter (a wizard) cast a
spell on the dragon.
Ellipses represent missing
words and indicate thought or
create suspense.
"Hello… Hello…? … Is … is
anyone there?"
...
A ʻfull stopʼ marks the end of
a sentence.
A cat sat on a mat.
An exclamation mark is used
at the end of a dramatic
statement or sentence.
“Help!”
A question mark is used at the
end of a question.
Would you like a drink?
A semi-colon is used to link
two related sentences.
Tea is my favourite drink; I like
it with milk and sugar.