This week’s homework is slightly different as it’s Practice makes Perfect. I want you to be able to distinguish between the two forms of its:
its – belonging to something, no apostrophe
it’s – a contraction, like we learnt last week, of ‘it is’
A good way to distinguish between the two is to check whether the sentence sounds correct if you substitute the word for ‘it is’. If you can do this, then the correct form is it’s. If it doesn’t seem to make sense, then the correct form is its.
For example:
The elephant raised its trunk.
The elephant raised it is trunk. (This doesn’t make sense. Therefore, the correct form is its without an apostrophe.)
Here are a couple of activities that you can do to test whether you can do them or not:
- Write it’s on a piece of paper and on the back write its. Then, get an adult to read out a sentence and you have to show them whether they need to use its or it’s.
- Find an interesting object. Can you describe it using both forms of its?