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Friday, May 4, 2012

Proofreading Police


My son’s first-grade teacher is working hard to help the students, my son included, understand the writing process and the importance of proofreading. To reinforce her efforts, I created a fun activity to give my son some practice editing.

Having spent much of my professional career as a writer and editor, this activity is close to my heart.

To start, we read a book from the Grammar Tales series. Francine Fribble, Proofreading Policewoman by Justin Martin was the perfect book to illustrate just how important proofreading is.


The story follows Francine on her beat as she heads through town correcting bad grammar (improper or forgotten capitalization, bad spelling, and lack of apostrophes and other punctuation). My son loved it!

When he was done, I told him it was time for him to join the proofreading police squad. He was excited!


I gave him four cases to review. Each profiled one kid (Too Busy Tina, Careless Kyle, Unsure Ursula, and Forgetful Frank). Download them here.

                                      
It was up to him to review their crimes against grammar and help correct the errors (i.e. to proofread)!


He did a wonderful job (this mama-writer was SO proud!), missing a few of the edits and struggling a bit with the use of the apostrophe, but was eager to get through all the “evidence.” 

16 comments:

  1. These are pure AWESOMENESS!!! (Please, don't correct my vocabulary of choice...) ;0)

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  2. These are TOO CUTE! We're working on the exact same things in our first grade classroom! Thank you so much!!!

    Oh My Little Classity Class

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  3. WOW, these are great! Thanks for sharing.
    Jenn


    Finally in First

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  4. Again-thank you, thank you!!!!

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  5. This is absolutely brilliant. Thanks for sharing your printables.

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  6. These look wonderful! Thank you for sharing on Read.Explore.Learn.

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  7. These are awesome! Thanks for sharing at A Pinteresting Party!

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  8. Great ideas! I may try some of these this summer.

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  9. What a great way to work with kids on this topic. Looks fun. Megan

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  10. What a fun approach to grammar!

    Thanks for sharing with Learning Laboratory at Mama Smiles =)

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  11. My 8 year old son tried these yesterday and was begging for more! Thank you so much for sharing.

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  12. These are wonderful!! Thank you so much for sharing them at Teach Me Tuesday!! I'm going to pin this and share it on my PreschoolPowolPackets Facebook page!

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  13. What a wonderful lesson and way to reinforce what he is learning in school. Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday! I hope you are having a wonderful week!

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  14. I'm featuring this post at the AfterSchool party. This is such a wonderful and fun idea! Thanks for sharing.

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  15. Very interesting blog.You shared a really good information. thank you and keep sharing.
    online paper editor

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  16. I teach third grade and I can really use the grammar police activity. Thank you so much. Something's got to make grammar more interesting.

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