Literacy: a tool not a task THE HUMBLE APOSTROPHE ‘

Why do we need the apostrophe? It clarifies relationships between things It prevents confusion over meaning It makes your writing precise

How does it work? 1. Possession – to show something belongs to someone or something. e.g. The bag of Rachael. Rachael’s bag. This tells us that it belongs to her.

How does it work? 2. Omission – to show when a letter has been missed out of one word, or two show missing letters when two words are joined together. e.g. could notcouldn’t cannotcan’t it isit’s This tells us that there is a missing letter and that it really means cannot.

Exceptions and Oddities It’s Names ending in ‘s’ -option one – apostrophe after ‘s’ e.g. James’ -option two – apostrophe ‘s’ after name e.g. James’s Always omission and never possession. e.g. its ball is the ball belonging to it.

Top Apostrophe Tips As you write a contraction say the words you really mean to remind you to add in the apostrophe. For possession try and write it in the formula ….of…… - if you can it needs an apostrophe. e.g. The elephant OF Mary = Mary’s elephant