KS2 Grammar and Writing – 5 Short Lessons on Using Commas to Avoid Ambiguity

Five 15-minute KS2 lessons and supporting resources for teaching students about the role commas play in preventing ambiguity.

1. UNDERSTAND – Establish that without the correct punctuation the meaning of a sentence can change. To avoid ambiguity, commas can be used to group pieces of information together.
2. USE – Challenge the children to create a piece of writing which includes a sentence that uses commas to avoid ambiguity.
3. PLAN – Children practice using commas in sentences in ways that change their meaning, before using an illustrated writing plan sheet to develop ideas for a short story.
4. WRITE (part 1) – Children use their completed writing plan to write their stories.
5. WRITE (part 2) – Children use an ‘uplevelling sheet’ to try and make nine existing sentences and make them more interesting.

This download contains the following materials:

• Commas challenge sheet
• Writing plan sheet
• Sentence cards
• Practice sheet
• Uplevelling sheet
• 31-slide PowerPoint presentation
• Teacher’s notes document

National Curriculum English programme of study links

Pupils should be taught to indicate grammatical and other features by using commas to clarify meaning or avoid ambiguity in writing.

This resource is part of the Grammar Bursts collection.
View more from this collection

• PowerPoint
• commas to avoid ambiguity worksheet
• sentence cards
• writing plan
• uplevelling writing worksheet