Capitalization

[mamaraby]

Ds took the ITBS this year and while all of his test results were as expected (including the areas in math he struggled with, no surprises there), he really did poorly on capitalization. He still comes out average if you look at the stanine, and maybe it's a silly thing, but capitalization?

 

We've done FLL 1-4, he's had a year in public school where I'm sure they covered the rules, and we used Hake 6 this year. We've also done WWE 1-3 and WWS1. All of these things have covered capitalization. Multiple times.

 

Part of me thinks, "Hey, it's hormones. He'll get it eventually." and the other part of me thinks "It's capitalization and you're 12 so let's get this sorted, m'kay?"

 

So, cheap, easy, high on the repetition. Is there a song on the rules for capitalization that I can purchase and then play until everyone in the house is singing it in their sleep? Or maybe so that I can belt it out loudly and off-key because my children really love it when I do that. They also tend not to forget the words then either. A really annoying poem? A tattoo for his eyelids? ;)

 

My secondary, and far more boring, plan is to get an Evan-Moor workbook with short and sweet daily editing exercises because hormones. So maybe then he'll get it without having to be explicit given that this next school year was going to be the one where we didn't do grammar in the formal sense. Has anyone done the editing workbooks from Evan-Moor? I assume they include identifying which words need to be capitalized?

[Arcadia]

Are you referring to Introduction to Daily Paragraph Editing? Link is to the grade 5 workbook that a school teacher put up. If that is what you think might work, then you can just order the correct grade level.

http://mrswilliams5thgradetrack.weebly.com/uploads/5/9/6/4/59646681/paragraph_editing_gr_5.pdf

 

For songs I was thinking of Schoolhouse Rock on YouTube but they don't have a video on capitalization. My kids enjoyed their grammar videos.

[Farrar]

There aren't that many capitalization questions on the ITBS and the questions are pick the mistake, which I think is harder for kids who haven't done that as their drill. If you see him mostly getting it right in the real world, I wouldn't take it that seriously.

 

We've done the Evan-Moor Daily Paragraph Editing books. They're good. I like them. They don't have explicit teaching to the student - just "reminders" of things to look for in the paragraph sometimes. They definitely cover capitalization of all sorts.

 

My kids both have been struggling with the finer points of capitalization this year. Like, you capitalize that Human Civilizations meets in the afternoons, but not that algebra class meets in the mornings. You capitalize Western thought, and the Old West, but not western North Carolina. You capitalize Japanese food but not southern food. I understand all those rules (inevitably when I post things like this, someone tries to explain it all... I get it, thanks, and they will too eventually). Things like that keep tripping them up and they either end up overcapitalizing everything (like in ds's lab report, where he used timothy hay, that's a name and then it goes with the hay, so he made it Timothy Hay throughout and it had to be fixed) or they forget and underdo it (like when ds wrote "french fries" in lower case over and over).

 

 

[rose]

Maybe slightly off topic but did he learn to read with 100EZ lessons? I have a 14yo and I've wondered for awhile now if some of his capitalization block was caused by 100EZ lessons. They introduce reading without any capitals and I wonder if their minds can get imprinted with an appearance of what language is supposed to look like from their first exposure. I don't know if that's true but it's just a hypothesis.

[Miss Tick]

My kids both have been struggling with the finer points of capitalization this year. Like, you capitalize that Human Civilizations meets in the afternoons, but not that algebra class meets in the mornings. You capitalize Western thought, and the Old West, but not western North Carolina. You capitalize Japanese food but not southern food. I understand all those rules (inevitably when I post things like this, someone tries to explain it all... I get it, thanks, and they will too eventually). Things like that keep tripping them up and they either end up overcapitalizing everything (like in ds's lab report, where he used timothy hay, that's a name and then it goes with the hay, so he made it Timothy Hay throughout and it had to be fixed) or they forget and underdo it (like when ds wrote "french fries" in lower case over and over).

Ack! I don't know the rules behind any ife those fancy, confusing examples! If anyone pops in to explain then I'll be you for that.

 

Maybe ds and I should make time for those workbooks together. He is really dicey with capitalization, but the problem has been masked by his atrocious handwriting that we have been working on for 6 years (aaagh!)

 

Rose M, we did use 100EZ, and while it didn't seem to bother my dds in the slightest, maybe you are on to something with my ds. So I'll take your anecdotal evidence and add 1.

[Farrar]

Ack! I don't know the rules behind any ife those fancy, confusing examples! If anyone pops in to explain then I'll be you for that.

 

Maybe ds and I should make time for those workbooks together. He is really dicey with capitalization, but the problem has been masked by his atrocious handwriting that we have been working on for 6 years (aaagh!)

 

Rose M, we did use 100EZ, and while it didn't seem to bother my dds in the slightest, maybe you are on to something with my ds. So I'll take your anecdotal evidence and add 1.

 

They're not that confusing... You capitalize the names of places even when you're not referring to the place per se, like in Greek food or French fries or Belgian waffles. You capitalize the name of a class if it's the official name, but not if it's a general name. I think that can get dicey when the official name is similar to a general name, like Algebra I, for example as opposed to "algebra class." Directions are capitalized if they're on their own like "the West" or "the East" but I think that gets very confusing for kids. And it's always capitalized if it's referring to the place, like Western civilization or Eastern philosophies. I know I make mistakes on directions when I'm not really thinking about it or it's not really obviously part of the name of a place like North Dakota or something. It's also hard to keep straight that it's "Dad said..." but "my dad said..." And what's a product name versus a general name. Like, a Rubik's Cube is a product name, but a fidget spinner is not. And just because something has a name that sounds like a person's name doesn't mean you capitalize it. Like, if you say you want to use the "john" you don't capitalize that, which is why my kid got confused about the timothy hay.

 

Okay, never mind. It is confusing. No wonder they're struggling.

[mamaraby]

Maybe slightly off topic but did he learn to read with 100EZ lessons? I have a 14yo and I've wondered for awhile now if some of his capitalization block was caused by 100EZ lessons. They introduce reading without any capitals and I wonder if their minds can get imprinted with an appearance of what language is supposed to look like from their first exposure. I don't know if that's true but it's just a hypothesis.

  

 

He learned to read woth OPGTR and ETC Online.

 

There aren't that many capitalization questions on the ITBS and the questions are pick the mistake, which I think is harder for kids who haven't done that as their drill. If you see him mostly getting it right in the real world, I wouldn't take it that seriously.

 

We've done the Evan-Moor Daily Paragraph Editing books. They're good. I like them. They don't have explicit teaching to the student - just "reminders" of things to look for in the paragraph sometimes. They definitely cover capitalization of all sorts.

 

My kids both have been struggling with the finer points of capitalization this year. Like, you capitalize that Human Civilizations meets in the afternoons, but not that algebra class meets in the mornings. You capitalize Western thought, and the Old West, but not western North Carolina. You capitalize Japanese food but not southern food. I understand all those rules (inevitably when I post things like this, someone tries to explain it all... I get it, thanks, and they will too eventually). Things like that keep tripping them up and they either end up overcapitalizing everything (like in ds's lab report, where he used timothy hay, that's a name and then it goes with the hay, so he made it Timothy Hay throughout and it had to be fixed) or they forget and underdo it (like when ds wrote "french fries" in lower case over and over).

You know, his capitalization struggles are pretty well in line with what you're describing. On the ITBS he mostly struggled with holidays, place names, wars/significant events. In his writing it's directions like west when referring to a place. He leans towards undercapitalizing rather than over capitalizing.

 

Since I'd also like him to better edit his own pieces, I thought the Evan-Moor books might shore up his test taking skills a bit while also getting him more practice in editing and maybe kill two birds with one stone. Our end goal is public school in 9th grade so strengthening existing skills and filling in weak areas is certainly my larger goal. It feels silly to eorry about capitalization, I'll admit, but it also feels silly for him to have done so poorly. Dh would point out even doing poorly turned out in the average range for stanine so...maybe I'll just let it be.

 

On the other hand, I don't want to be that inept homeschooler. It's complicated. ;)

[Farrar]

The Evan-Moor editing books are good. Super short and simple. We use them a few times a week. The main thing is to be sure to go over it right then, at least around here it is. Otherwise the practice is useless.

[Amy in KS]

How about IEW Fix It? It reviews capitalization and punctuation with rule cards. Students edit and copy one sentence per day.