Connect students directly to the concept in a personal way. Capture students' attention by initiating a group problem-solving activity before delivery of instruction. Begin with a situation that is familiar to students and builds on what they already know. Construct a learning experience that allows diverse and personal student responses. Facilitate the work of cooperative teams of students.

Read story without punctuation. Let them be punctuation marks.

Objective: To illustrate the need for punctuation in written language by relating it to pauses in spoken language.

Activity: Choose a story written by one of the children. Comment: "I'm going to read Tom's wonderful story, but I'm going to change it. I want you to listen and see if you can tell me how I have changed it." Read the story as though it had no punctuation. Discuss what happened. Choose four children to be punctuation marks: One a period, one a comma, one an exclamation mark, and one a question mark. Hang signs around their necks. Choose a good reader and coach the student. Let him/her practice a few times. The teacher could prepare a simple passage in advance. For example: "Sally Pig and Kevin Frog went on a picnic in a beautiful yellow car it was a breezy sunny and warm day suddenly bang they had a flat tire Kevin Frog stopped the car he got out to fix the tire Sally Pig tried to help Kevin jack up the car and she pushed this way when she should have pushed that way the car fell knocking Kevin Frog into a big deep and muddy puddle alongside the road what do you think Sally Pig did next" This passage needs: 6 periods, 1 exclamation mark, 2 commas, and 1 question mark. The children who are the punctuation marks stand in a straight line facing the class. The punctuation marks are told to listen to the story about to be read, and jump in when they think they should. (Tell them to jump once forward.) The children in their seats are told to watch and decide if the punctuation marks have jumped in at the right time. If not, they get to take their place. Have the passage read once while all listen. On the second reading, tell the punctuation marks to be ready. Play the game. Have several other passages ready so more of the children get to play.

Assessment: Fun the children have.