Apostrophes Made Easy

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Apostrophes Made Easy

by Don McCabe

Catalog # W723

8 1/2 x 11
Spiral Bound

ISBN:1-56400-782-0

This book is no longer sold separately, but as part of: It-ss and Tooze, Apostrophes, and The I Before E Rule Made easy for $14.95.

This is a series of exercises in which the students get to correct their answers immediately, but also must give reasons for their answers. Being right is not enough. They need to know why they are right. After all, it's a 50/50 shot on its or it's. And one out of three with the their, there, and they're is a good batting average in baseball--but not in spelling.

The lessons begin with a lesson on how we speed up our speech by running words together.

For example we could say very slowly:

very

cold

Alaska

the

winter.

Or we could say it faster like this:

very

cold

Alaska

the

winter.

Or we could say it even faster like this:

very

cold

Alaska

the

winter.

Or faster yet like this:

It's

very cold in Alaska in the winter.

Once the concept of running words together can be shown by using apostrophes, we give the students practice in showing what the words are that are run together as in the abbreviated exercise below.

Dictated Sentence	Contraction of

Didn't you know that?	Did not
Jimmy's my very best friend	Jimmy is
They weren't there.	were not

Once the concept of running words together by using apostrophes, we then give the students practice in using the apostrophe to show possession. Then we give them practice with both. Notice that in the exercises the student not only must get the correct spelling but must place it in the correct column.

Dictated Sentence	Contraction of	Shows Possession	Simple Plural No Apostrophe

The car's getting fixed.	car is
The car's radio is on the blink.		car's
They own two cars.			cars

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