Capitalization

Organization

Punctuation

Spelling

First graders are applying a new strategy to help them edit their writing.  Starting with the daily review, students applied the COPS strategy to edit sentences.  To use the COPS strategy, first students check for appropriate capitalization by checking that they used a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence and capitalized proper nouns throughout the sentence.  Next, they check for organization, looking for word spacing and appropriate word usage.  Moving on, they look for punctuation both at the end of the sentence and throughout. Does the punctuation reflect the kind of sentence written?  Are commas and apostrophe’s used correctly?  Finally, students check for spelling.  After practicing this strategy together through the daily review, students will be asked to apply it to their own writing.