Every week, your child will work on editing a paragraph for mistakes in punctuation and capitalization.  You may be wondering why the editing task is limited to these two skills.  While your child will learn about many other grammar and editing skills throughout the year, the weekly edit is limited to the two skills that your child will need to use on the New York State English Language Arts (ELA) Exam.  On the exam, your child will be asked to edit a paragraph for mistakes in punctuation and capitalization.  If your child makes any other changes to the passage, (e.g. spelling or word use,) a point will be deducted for each change.  Please help your child learn to follow the directions and only make the specified changes. 

The example below is from a previous NYS ELA Exam. 

Daily edits are a single editing paragraph that I've written that the students edit as soon as they come in from recess each afternoon. I print out the paragraphs onto half-sheets of paper, and the students simply take a copy when they walk in the door. We then correct the paragraph as a class on the Smartboard.


I've posted a bunch of my daily edits on a separate page. Click here if you would like to view or download the documents.  Editing quizzes with additional paragraphs are also posted there for download.

This Smartboard notebook file introduces students to how to complete an editing assignment.  It has two editing paragraphs, as well as instructions. You will need to have the Notebook software installed on your computer to open this file.