Our PTA printed out posters and hung them all around the school to advertise a fundraiser. There were so many errors in it, I wanted to use it for daily editing practice with my students. The biggest was the misuse of apostrophes. Every time a word ended in s, there was an apostrophe - sometimes before the s and sometimes after. There shouldn't have been any apostrophes at all.

I KNOW I'm a grumpy grammar grinch, but apostrophe misuse is beginning to get to me. So I present a min lesson - it's the 5th grade teacher in me.

You don't need an apostrophe if all you are doing is making something plural - more than one.

You do need an apostrophe to show possession - ownership. If it's only one owner the apostrophe goes before the s. If it's a plural owner, the apostrophe goes after the s. The only exception to this I can think of, is the word its. This "its" is the possessive one.

You do need an apostrophe in contractions to replace the missing letters.

Why does this matter? It matters because writing is communication. Rules of grammar, spelling and punctuation were developed to make communication easier. Communication does not occur in the mind of the writer; it occurs in the mind of your reader.

Yes, that is exactly what I tell my students every day!

Veronica

PS This post isn't intended to be hurtful or unkind, merely instructional. I still recall how I relieved I felt when I FINALLY figured the difference between then and than. Many thanks to Mrs. Woodbrey, my awesome Latin teacher, who actually took the time to explain it to me.