Avoiding Comma Splicing - PowerPoint

The teaching resource on avoiding comma splicing is an essential guide for Key Stage 2 students to enhance their writing skills, particularly in the areas of vocabulary, grammar, and punctuation. The material presents a step-by-step approach to understanding what comma splicing is—a common mistake where two independent clauses are incorrectly joined with just a comma. For example, "Joe went to school, he came home at three o'clock." is identified as a comma splice because both parts before and after the comma can stand alone as complete sentences. The resource offers clear explanations and strategies for correcting this error.

Students are taught to correct comma splices by employing three main methods. The first method involves adding a conjunction after the comma to properly connect the independent clauses, as in "Joe went to school, and he came home at three o'clock." The second method is to use a semicolon to join the clauses without a conjunction, demonstrated by "Joe went to school; he came home at three o'clock." Lastly, the resource suggests creating two separate sentences if the clauses can stand alone, resulting in "Joe went to school. He came home at three o'clock." The worksheets provided enable students to practice these techniques with various examples, ensuring they can identify and correct comma splices in their own writing.