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Editing and spelling rules
Can do: Rereads their own work and fixes capitals, end marks and known spelling patterns.
Why it matters
Writers who never reread never improve. Editing your own writing is also the first real practice at judging your own work.
What it looks like when it's wobbly
Declares it finished the second the last word lands, and reads their work back the way they meant it rather than as it's written.
⏱️ Two-minute check
Give them their own paragraph from yesterday. "Find three things to fix."
Solid looks like: Three real corrections found independently.
The full activity for this topic · 10 minutes
COPS Check
- 1Teach the four letters: Capitals, Organisation, Punctuation, Spelling.
- 2Do one pass per letter. Only look for one thing at a time — that's what makes it work.
- 3Read it aloud backwards, sentence by sentence, for the spelling pass. It breaks the meaning and exposes the words.
- 4Circle words that "look wrong" and check just those.
- 5Rewrite one sentence — not the whole thing — using what they found.
If it's too hard
Just the capitals-and-full-stops pass.
If it's too easy
Add a pass for repeated words and for sentences that all start the same way.
Say this
"One job at a time. This pass, we're only hunting capitals."