Trickier apostrophes

Children will have learnt in Year 2 that 's is added to singular nouns to show possession (the cat's tail).  This is usually the same for a proper noun that already ends in s.  Examples are Charles's car, James's book.  When possession is shown in this way, the additional s is pronounced.  

As with everything in our language, there are exceptions to be found: for example, St. James's Park in London uses the 's, whereas St. James' Park, home of Exeter City FC, just uses the apostrophe on its own.  Very often the exceptions relate to names of places or organisations, so it is a good idea to check the source through an official document or website.

Sometimes names end in s, but to pronounce an additional s would be awkward, e.g. Achilles' heel, not Achilles's heel.  You wouldn't say 'I watched Kevin Bridges's show.' or 'I love Saint Saens's music.' Therefore, in these instances we would just use Kevin Bridges' show and Saint Saens' music.

There is much debate over whether proper nouns ending in a sibilant sound (/s/ or /z/) should take 's or just the apostrophe to indicate possession.  Writers make a choice about which convention they use and children will find exceptions and will delight in pointing these out to their teachers and parents.  I believe, when working with children, best practice would be consistency in adding 's, unless this makes the word awkward to say, or we just wouldn't even consider pronouncing the additional s.

Using apostrophes to show singular possession

In Year 2, children will learn that an apostrophe + s ('s) is added to singular nouns to show possession: 

• the dog's ball (the ball belongs to the dog)
• the flower's petals (the petals belong to the flower)
• the car's wheels (the wheels belong to the car)

You can help your child learn about using apostrophes in this way by using a picture of an animal or a vehicle, where you can name various parts.  First list the parts of the animal or vehicle they can see.

 tail    head    ears    whiskers    eyes    paws    nose

Discuss with your child how you can say that these parts belong to the cat.  Point to different parts and ask them to tell you 'the cat's tail', 'the cat's whiskers', etc.  When they can talk the picture, ask them to write the words.  If they write 'the cats tail', ask how many cats they can see.  How can we make sure the reader knows there is only one cat?  We use an apostrophe before the s.  If you print out the picture, or use one from a magazine, they could label the picture.

The process is usually the same for a proper noun that already ends in s.  Examples are Charles's car, James's book.  When possession is shown in this way, the additional s is pronounced.  For information on trickier apostrophes, click here.

Nouns and noun phrases in Year 1

2014 National curriculum requirements for Year 1 children relating to nouns	Terminology used in Year 1
Regular plural noun suffixes –s or –es [for example, dog, dogs; wish, wishes], including the effects of these suffixes on the meaning of the noun	singular, plural
How the prefix un– changes the meaning of verbs and adjectives [negation, for example, unkind, or undoing: untie the boat]

Although children in year 1 are not required to use the terminology noun and adjective, it is likely that teachers will start using these terms to help pupils develop their sentence writing. 

Teachers will focus on building children’s repertoire of nouns, making sure children understand what the word means, and then encouraging them to segment (sound out) the word so that they can use their phonic knowledge to spell the word.  Children will also start to use the terms singular and plural.  The Year 1 requirement to spell plurals correctly will be linked to their learning in phonics, so that they understand that nouns usually end in –s in the plural, but that there are certain nouns that will need –es for their plural spelling.  The rule for this is as follows:  The suffix –es is used after words ending in /s/, /ch/, /sh/ and /z/ and when ‘y’ is replaced by ‘i’.

• bus/buses
• church/churches
• bush/bushes
• buzz/buzzes
• dolly/dollies

When children start to write sentences, there are lots of things for them to remember and try to focus on: forming the letters correctly, choosing the right words, spelling the words correctly, remembering finger-spaces, capital letters and full stops, keeping their writing on the line and the right size, etc.  They may have lots of ideas about what to write, but the quality of what they write rarely matches up to their spoken ideas.  Therefore, their first written sentences are likely to contain very basic noun phrases, often starting with ‘the’ or ‘a’, e.g. The boy, a dog.

During Foundation Stage and Year 1, children will be taught to read and write a number of words which can vary the starts to these noun phrases.  The table below contains many of these words, some of which can only be used with a singular noun, some with a plural noun and some with both singular and plural.  Your child should be encouraged to use these words as these will improve the variety in their writing and also reinforce the spelling of these (often very common) words.

a	an	the	this	that	these	those
my	his	her	our	your	their	some
all	one	two	three	other	many	another

You can use the table to create cards to match up to pictures of singular and plural nouns.  Discussing what the words mean and whether they can be matched with the nouns in the pictures will help your child develop understanding around their use.  Here is a picture to start you off.

flowers	rose
fern	leaves

 

• the flowers
• some flowers
• many flowers
• these flowers
• my flowers
• a rose
• the rose
• one rose
• our rose

The above are all correct, but we couldn’t have:

• a flowers
• many fern
• an leaves

In Year 1, children will also be encouraged to describe people, objects and places.  Much of this description will take place by creating spoken sentences.  Looking at a picture and choosing a noun to describe is a good way to start children build noun phrases.  In the picture above, you could ask your child to describe the rose.  How big is it? What colour is it?  They might describe it as ‘the pink rose’ or ‘the small rose’.  Could they put that noun phrase into a sentence? (The pink rose is in the garden.)

In that example, ‘pink’ and ‘small’ are adjectives, describing the noun ‘rose’.  In Year 1, we want to encourage children to use adjectives to describe the nouns they want to use in spoken and written language, even if they do not use the terms adjective and noun yet.

As children’s understanding of adjectives increases, we can start to introduce the second of the above National Curriculum requirements: using the prefix ‘un’ to change the meaning of an adjective.  For example, kind/unkind, happy/unhappy, sure/unsure.  Discussing these changes to the meaning of words will help children understand that this structure only works with certain adjectives, not all.  As with all work on grammar, it is a good idea for children to practise putting their examples into real sentences.  Teachers will also be linking this prefix to work on verbs.