VA ClassesApostrophes
The apostrophe is the mark adults get wrong most often, and children are usually taught it as three separate rules with an exception bolted on. It is not three rules. The mark stands where something was taken out, or where an owner ends, and everything else follows from that.
The missing letter
An apostrophe marks a place where something is gone.
When two words are squeezed into one, letters have to be dropped, and the mark stands in the hole they left. That is the first job, it is the easier of the two, and it is the one that makes the second job make sense later on.
That last point does most of the work. A child who has been told the mark goes "before the s" will write do'nt, because they are following the rule they were given rather than looking at what is missing. Ask them which letter left and the mark places itself.
The test. Say the two words back in full. If do not, is not, I will or they are fits, you have a contraction and the mark goes where the missing letters were.
Showing who owns it
The second job looks like a different rule and is the same idea, because English used to say the dog his bone, and the mark is standing in for what wore away.
Write the owner, then add. One dog is dog, so you add an apostrophe and an s: the dog's bone. Several dogs is dogs, which already ends in s, so you add just the apostrophe: the dogs' bones.
This is why the position of the mark tells a reader how many owners there are, and it does that silently, without a single extra word. My friend's parents is one friend. My friends' parents is several. Nothing else in the sentence changes, and most readers pick it up without noticing they did.
Its and it's
Here is the one that catches adults.
The test that always works. Say it is out loud in place of the word. If the sentence still makes sense, write it's. If it does not, write its. There is no third case, so this test never leaves you stuck.
Plurals never take one
More than one of something is just an s. No mark, ever, no matter how the word ends.
Apple's 50p. That sign is on a market stall somewhere near you, and it says the apple owns 50p. The plural of apple is apples, and a plural is not an owner, which is the only question worth asking. This mistake is so common it has a name: the greengrocer's apostrophe.
Where it gets genuinely confusing is a plural that also owns something, because then both rules apply at once. Three girls own the bags, so write the owner first, girls, then add the mark: the girls' bags. The s in that phrase is the plural, and the mark is the ownership, doing two different jobs half a character apart.
Worked examples
Punctuate: the boys football boots, where there is one boy.
- Who owns the boots? One boy.
- Write the owner exactly as it is: boy.
- It does not end in s, so add an apostrophe and an s.
- The boots belong to the boy, so the phrase becomes the boy's football boots.
The boy's football boots.
Punctuate: the boys football boots, where there are several boys.
- Who owns the boots? Several boys.
- Write the owner exactly as it is: boys.
- It already ends in s, so add the apostrophe on its own.
- Same words, different mark, and the reader now knows there is a team.
The boys' football boots.
Choose: The cat licked (its / it's) paw.
- Run the test. Say it is in place of the word.
- The cat licked it is paw. That is not a sentence.
- So it is not the contraction.
- The paw belongs to the cat, and possessives take no mark.
The cat licked its paw.
Common mistakes
Putting the mark before the s out of habit
The dogs' bone when there is one dog. The child has learned a position rather than a method, so they place the mark by muscle memory and the sentence quietly says something they did not mean. Writing the owner down first makes the position fall out on its own.
An apostrophe on every s
Once a child notices the mark they start putting one in every word that ends in s, including plain plurals. It usually appears a week after the lesson, not during it, and it is a sign the idea landed rather than a sign it did not. Ask one question: is this word an owner?
Trusting the sound of its and it's
They are pronounced identically, so listening cannot help and reading aloud will not catch it. This is the one place where the written test beats the ear, and it is worth saying that plainly, because children are usually told to read their work out loud to find mistakes.
Practice questions
Seven questions. One attempt each, and the explanation appears once the answer is in.
Check yourself
No sign up. Nothing is sent anywhere, the score stays on this device.
What to learn next
For parents. Next time you pass a shop sign or a menu, read the apostrophes out loud together and ask what each one is claiming. Half of them will be wrong, and finding a mistake in print does more for a child's confidence than getting ten exercises right, because it proves the rule is real and not just something school invented.
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