Parent Tips: Practice 4.2.3

In Practice 4.2.3, we ask your child to misuse commas in ways that impact the meaning of the text—first at the sentence and then at the paragraph level. And then, of course, fix and explain the mistakes. As fun as an explosion of bizarre commas looks on the page, though, we are not looking for random comma mistakes. Instead, we want your child to make surgical mistakes that impact the meaning of their text. Being able to do this requires a deep understanding of comma conventions as well as critical reading skills. We encourage your child to track the subject and main verb/verb phrase of their sentences to anchor them in the core meaning elements of their texts.