The first week of the new term is over and the class have settled well into their routines again. We have been learning to add two 1-digit numbers by bridging 10 (see previous post), reading and writing words with the suffix -ing, and learning how not to ‘squash’ our sentences.
A squashed sentence is when two sentences are squashed together without any punctuation.
An example: I went camping it was fun.
This should be: I went camping. It was fun. (…or some other punctuation, but not a comma)
We can also join two sentences with conjunctions.
An example: I went camping and it was fun.
This week, we were focusing on separating two squashed sentences with a full stop. Children found it easy to identify where the full stop should go to separate the sentences when listening to a squashed sentence being read, but found it less easy to do this in their own writing.
To help at home, you could ensure that children are pausing at full stops in their reading. You could also write two sentences which are separated by a full stop in the incorrect place, such as I went. Camping it was fun. Read the sentences together and see if your child could fix it.
‘Squashed sentences’ are something which spoils some older children’s writing, and it’s hard to get out of the habit later on. Please practise this lots at home!