Standard 2: Reading Foundations

Students will develop foundational skills for future reading success by working with sounds, letters, and text.

PRINT CONCEPTS: Students will demonstrate their understanding of the organization and basic features of print, including book handling skills and the understanding that printed materials provide information and tell stories. 

Students will continue to review and apply earlier grade level expectations for this standard.  If print concepts skills are not mastered, students will address skills from previous grades. 

1.2.PC.2 Students will recognize the distinguishing features of a sentence (e.g., capitalization of the first word, ending punctuation, comma, quotation marks).

Student Actions 

Teacher Actions 

• Students will know:

• Sentences begin with a capital letter.

• Students will know:

• Sentences end with a period, question mark, or exclamation mark.

• Students will know:

• Some purposes of commas and quotation marks.

• Teachers explain that sentences begin with a capital letter.

• Teachers model writing sentences beginning with a capital letter.

• Teachers point out capital letters at the beginning of sentences in texts.

• Teachers provide opportunities for students to write sentences beginning with capital letters.

• Teachers monitor understanding of sentence features and provide opportunities for students to receive feedback.

• Teachers explain that sentences end with a period, question mark, or exclamation mark to clarify purpose.

• Teachers write sentences modeling which end mark to use for specific purposes.

• Teachers model reading questions and exclamatory sentences with expression.  

• Teachers give students opportunities to locate different end marks in text.

• Teachers give students opportunities to read sentences with expression based on end marks.

• Teachers monitor and provide opportunities for students to receive feedback.

• Teachers explain the purpose of using commas when making lists, in dates, etc, and explain that a comma means to pause before reading the next word.

• Teachers explain that quotation marks mean that a character is talking.

• Teachers model reading texts with commas and quotation marks.

• Teachers provide students with opportunities to locate commas and quotation marks in texts and practice reading, paying close attention to punctuation marks.

• Teachers monitor and provide opportunities for students to receive feedback. 

Supporting Resources 

Teacher Insights 

Interactive Comic Strip Creator (webpage) 

Gotcha!  Punctuation Activity (webpage)

Play with Punctuation (webpage)

 Mini-Writing Lessons (PDF)

• Teach hand gestures to use when completing sentence frames orally, speaking in complete sentences, or any oral speaking activities.  

• An ending mark is a punctuation mark occurring at the end of a sentence.

• A period tells the reader the idea is complete in a declarative sentence.

• A question mark indicates a question.

• An exclamation mark indicates strong feeling or emotion

• Morning messages or mini-writing lessons give students opportunities to identify and use proper capitalization and end marks in sentences.  

Due to recursive nature of the standards, it is essential that teachers are aware of how all objectives within and between strands work together for optimal instruction.