Messages and Letters
Primary 5 · English
Messages and Letters
Lesson 3 of 3
14 min
Let's begin
Read this out loud, exactly as it is written, without stopping:
on saturday keza and i went to nyabugogo we bought beans rice and sugar didnt we spend a lot
Where do you take a breath? Where does one idea end and the next begin? You cannot tell — and neither can your reader.
Punctuation marks are the road signs of writing. Today you put them all back in.
Here is that first line, capitals fixed:
On Saturday, Keza and I walked to Nyabugogo market in Kigali.
Six capital letters, and every one has a reason:
Ordinary words stay small: market, school, goat, teacher, mother — unless they start the sentence or are part of a name.
A sentence that tells you something ends with a full stop:
We bought beans.
A sentence that asks something ends with a question mark:
How much are the beans?
If your voice lifts at the end and you are waiting for an answer, it is a question. Words like how, what, where, when, why, who, is, are, did, can often start one.
Careful with this one: Keza asked how much the beans cost. No question mark! That sentence tells you that she asked. The asking itself is not happening on the page. Only the real question gets the mark: How much do the beans cost?
A comma does four jobs you need right now.
Job 1: the missing-letter mark. Two words squeeze into one, and the apostrophe stands exactly where the missing letters used to be.
Job 2: the owner’s mark. Add ’s to show that something belongs to someone.
When the owners are many and the word already ends in s, the apostrophe hops to the other side: the girls’ team = the team of the girls.
And that is all. If an apostrophe is not marking a missing letter and not marking an owner, it should not be on your page. A word like bananas or goats is just a plural — leave it alone.
Warning
its or it’s? This one catches everybody.
it’s = it is. “It’s raining.” = “It is raining.”
its = belonging to it. “The goat broke its rope.”
The test: say “it is” in your head. If the sentence still makes sense, write it’s. If it turns into nonsense — “the goat broke it is rope” — then write its, with no apostrophe.
Nobody writes a clean first draft. Not you, not your teacher, not the people who wrote the books in your library. What good writers do is check. Here is the whole job done once, slowly.
Before:
on saturday my sister keza and i walked to nyabugogo market we bought beans rice and sugar didnt we spend a lot the beans cost 900 frw a kilo it wasnt cheap but mother said the price was fair
After:
On Saturday, my sister Keza and I walked to Nyabugogo market. We bought beans, rice and sugar. Didn’t we spend a lot? The beans cost 900 Frw a kilo. It wasn’t cheap, but mother said the price was fair.
Every single fix, and why:
Do not hunt for everything at once — you will miss half of it. Go through your work once for each thing:
Tip
Read your work aloud, slowly. Your mouth knows where the full stops go before your brain does. Everywhere your voice naturally stops, check that there is a mark on the paper. If you run out of breath before you reach one — you have lost a full stop somewhere.
Copy each one into your book and correct it. Then check.
my brother ishimwe was born in march in musanze
Answer: My brother Ishimwe was born in March in Musanze. Capital M (first word), capital I (a name), capital M (a month), capital M (a place), full stop at the end. The words brother and born stay small — they are ordinary words.
Full stop or question mark?
(a) Where did you put my exercise book
(b) I left it under the desk
Answer: (a) takes a question mark — it asks. (b) takes a full stop — it tells.
Put in the commas: We packed bread bananas water and a blanket.
Answer: We packed bread, bananas, water and a blanket. Two commas, then and before the last item. You do not need a comma in front of that and.
its or it’s?
(a) ___ almost four o’clock.
(b) The dog wagged ___ tail.
Answer: (a) It’s — try it: “It is almost four o’clock.” It works. (b) its — “The dog wagged it is tail” is nonsense, so no apostrophe. The tail belongs to the dog.
Find and fix the four mistakes: on tuesday uwase and i swept the classroom
Answer: On Tuesday, Uwase and I swept the classroom. (1) On — first word, capital. (2) Tuesday — a day, capital, plus a comma after the scene-setting opener. (3) Uwase — a name, capital. (4) I — always a capital. And do not forget the full stop.
What you learned today
Quick check
Which of these words always needs a capital letter, even in the middle of a sentence?
