Year 6 — Punctuation

Apostrophes and speech

Use apostrophes accurately for possession (including tricky plural possessives) and contractions, and punctuate speech accurately, including multi-line dialogue exchanges.

Back to Year 6

💡Understand

For SINGULAR possession, add 's (the dog's bone). For PLURAL nouns already ending in -s, add only an apostrophe (the dogs' bones). For irregular plurals not ending in -s, add 's (the children's toys). In speech, each new speaker starts a NEW paragraph.

“"Is this your book?" asked Sam. "No," replied Priya, "it's my sister's."”

Each speaker gets a new paragraph (a KS2-standard convention), and "sister's" uses an apostrophe + s for singular possession, while "it's" is a contraction of 'it is', not a possessive — a common tricky distinction.

🔍Spot it

Is this apostrophe use correct, and why?

Question 1

"The teachers' staffroom was recently redecorated." (multiple teachers)

💡 Since 'teachers' is already plural and ends in -s, only an apostrophe is added, not 's.

Question 2

"The children's playground was rebuilt."

💡 'Children' is an irregular plural that doesn't end in -s, so it takes 's like a singular noun would.

Question 3

"Its raining outside."

💡 'It's' is the contraction of 'it is'; 'its' (no apostrophe) shows possession, e.g. 'the dog wagged its tail'.

🧠Think about it

Why is 'its' vs "it's" one of the most commonly confused apostrophe rules, even for confident writers?

✍️Try it

Choose the correctly punctuated speech.

Two characters are having a conversation.

Question 1

Which correctly punctuates a multi-speaker exchange?

💡 Remember that each new speaker should start a new paragraph/line.

📝Practise

Identify the correct apostrophe use or speech punctuation.

Question 1

"The boys' football was lost." (multiple boys) is...

Question 2

"The women's meeting starts at noon." is...

Question 3

"The cat licked it's paw." is...

Question 4

In speech punctuation, what should happen every time a new person speaks?

💡 It's the key speech-punctuation rule introduced in this lesson.

Question 5

"James's bike was stolen." (a name ending in -s) is...

Question 6

"Whos coming to the party?" is missing which punctuation?

🎯Apply

Read the passage, then answer the questions below.

"Whose bag is this?" asked the teacher, holding it up. "It's mine," said Oliver, "but I think it's actually my sister's — we have the same one." The boys' cloakroom was full of identical bags that day.

Question 1

How does the passage correctly show the change of speaker?

💡 Look at how the teacher's and Oliver's dialogue are separated.

Question 2

What is the difference in function between "It's" and "my sister's" in Oliver's line?

Question 3

Why does 'boys' cloakroom' use only an apostrophe with no extra 's'?

💡 Recall the rule for plural nouns that already end in -s.

🏆Challenge

Write a short dialogue exchange (three lines, alternating between two speakers) that correctly punctuates speech AND includes at least one correct example of possessive apostrophe use.

🔄Review

A quick mastery check — 3 questions.

Question 1

"The dog wagged its tail." is...

Question 2

"The girls' team won the match." (multiple girls) is...

Question 3

In speech punctuation, a new speaker should...