Our KS3/4 Punctuation and word class booklet is a versatile addition to our comprehensive SPaG collection. Encourage students to work on it independently, or use it as a series of homework tasks. It also helpfully includes assessment tasks and answers for self or peer checking.
For more specific or targeted resources, try some of the resources below:
Spelling
Confusable words is a great resource for your younger KS3 groups and helps you to go back to basics with these common homophones.
For KS3 and KS4, Know the difference: where, were, wear, we're and ware explains the differences between these words and gives students handy ways to remember them. Spelling strategies to try is a useful resource for students who struggle with spelling, and you'll find a whole section on evidence-based approaches to spelling at KS3-4 in our comprehensive teaching pack, Mastering Spelling, punctuation and grammar.
Punctuation
If your students are struggling with the dreaded apostrophe, tackle the problem head-on with this simple but effective Apostrophe practice worksheet which is suitable for KS3 and KS4. Answers are included.
Punctuation pyramid can be used across all three English key stages, from KS3-5. Students cut out the pyramid and display it on their desks as a reminder to use a range of punctuation marks, including commas, full stops, question marks, exclamation marks, ellipses, hyphens, parentheses, semicolons, colons, speech marks and dashes. It also comes with teaching ideas and really fun, quick writing activities to help students to practice their SPaG skills, which would be perfect for starters.
Try Punctuation and conjunctions pyramid for a similar resource which aims to give students the confidence to use more sophisticated linking words and phrases in their writing. Using capital letters and full stops correctly is a helpful back to basics resource for students who need to master the fundamentals.
Grammar
At Teachit we love a learning mat. Choose from Word class learning mat or remind students of the basics with this Sentence types learning mat which covers a range of sentence types, including direct and reported speech, positive and negative sentences, conditional sentences and the active and passive voice.
Sentence construction dice is a fun game for students to play together, and encourages them to experiment with different sentences, including simple, compound and complex sentences. Fix these sentences! and Correcting sentences are handy SPaG correction exercise worksheets, which would be useful as starters or quick formative assessments.
Want more? Why not browse our SPaG collection page for the full range of spelling, punctuation and grammar resources?
This article was first published as an Editor's pick newsletter in February 2021.
