Revising and editing
Proofread their own writing for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. With help from a teacher or peer, evaluate and revise it. Reread to check that the meaning is clear and the tense is consistent.
What a learner can do afterwards
- Re-read own writing and spot a missing full stop or capital letter
- Identify and correct a tense inconsistency in a piece of writing
- Discuss improvements with a partner and make at least one revision to strengthen the writing
1 · Read
After writing, revise your ideas or add details so a reader can follow them. Edit to fix spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Read your writing aloud to hear missing words or unclear parts. Ask a partner which part needs more detail. Try a helpful change, then read that part again.
Zara wrote: 'yesterday i go to the park.' She fixes three things: 'yesterday' becomes 'Yesterday', 'i' becomes 'I', and 'go' becomes 'went'. Now she has: 'Yesterday I went to the park.' The visit happened yesterday, so 'went' puts it in the past.
Check one thing at a time: spelling, then punctuation. A sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with an end mark. A telling sentence needs a full stop. The word 'I' always has a capital. In 'We have a kite.', 'have' stays lower case because it is an ordinary word inside the sentence.
For a story about past events, check each action word. Many verbs add '-ed', like 'talk' becoming 'talked'. Others change, like 'see' becoming 'saw'. Keep the tense the same if the time stays the same. A time change can need another tense: 'I walk every day. Yesterday I rested.'
Read your writing again, fix the mistakes you find, and ask a partner to help you make it even better.
These five readings were written for this dataset. Reference material was studied in OpenStax's Writing Guide, wikiHow's punctuation guide, and the OER Commons record for Auburn University's proofreading handout.
2 · Watch
Take it off screen
Where it sits
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.