Capitalization for Grade 1: Dates, Names, and Beginning of Sentences

Written by Lori Toney, English teacher, educational writer and mother of three school children

Throughout the first grade, learners are busy mastering the foundational building blocks of writing, sometimes referred to as print concepts. Specifically, this refers to the writing conventions that make written communication organized and clear. One of the most important print concepts that kids tackle as they learn to write is capitalization.

Capitalization is  important to teach because it helps readers understand where sentences begin, and to distinguish proper nouns, titles, and dates. Later, when children grow into more sophisticated writers, they will be expected to adhere to writing conventions, such as capitalization, when writing essays and in professional contexts.

It may seem tricky to figure out where to start when it comes to teaching your little learner to use proper capitalization. To begin, start with what they already know: names, sentences, and dates.

Teaching Capitalization for First Graders

In their writing lessons, first graders have been learning simple grammar concepts and sentence structure rules. Generally, the simplest place to start with capitalization is by complementing concepts they have already learned, such as:

• Sentences- Teach students to capitalize the first letter of every sentence to form a polished and complete sentence. Capitalization is like icing on a cake; as children learn to form sentences and use punctuation, capitalizing the first letter of their sentence is a step that helps their sentence convey the exact meaning they intend.
  
  
• Names- Kids are familiar with names of the people closest to them, like their parents, siblings, teachers, friends and pets. Instruct writers to always capitalize the first letter of those names because they are all important and unique. E.g. Pete, Joanna, Ms. Sanders, Alfie.
  As students master the concept of proper nouns, teach them that not only names but every proper noun, must be written with a capital letter: e.g. New York, Lego, Grand Canyon.
  
  
• Dates- Students have been learning months of the year and days of the week since preschool; point out that words that indicate date are always capitalized: e.g. Tuesday, March.

Capitalization Learning Activities for Grade 1

Kids Academy has several resources to help your little learner master capitalization basics. To start, watch this adorable video about beginning sentences with capital letters. While watching, the video will tell a cute story while explaining how each sentence begins with a capital letter.

Afterwards, move on to the rest of the lesson, which offer worksheets that tasks students with identifying the words and letters that must be capitalized in the beginning of sentences.

As students master capitalizing sentences, they should practice with names and dates. This helpful worksheet explains the capitalization rules as children work through the exercise to maximize their learning.

Move on to the rest of the lesson, which challenges learners by quizzing them on which words or letters should be capitalized. The second worksheet depicted below in the lesson helps them to consider the words and whether they are name or places, or if they are simply common nouns. The Practice Capitalization exercise leads students to pick words from a list without the help of a sentence.

Wrap up the lesson by assessing their knowledge using the quiz, which asks children to complete a variety of questions, such as completing sentences with the correctly capitalized words, and selecting the words from a list. If more practice is needed, students can review all the exercises again, write sentences of their own, or go on a scavenger hunt to find capitalized dates, names, and sentences in print.

Capitalization may seem like a simple, basic topic, but that’s because it is! Remember that first graders are just learning the foundational skills that all their writing skills will be based upon, and it’s important that they learn proper print concepts and writing conventions as they increase their abilities and knowledge.

For more reading and writing resources, don’t forget to check our full library of learning materials at www.kidsacademy.mobi. Use our web-based Online Classroom to create curated classes on different topics and share them with your students!