✏️ WritingLevel 1Lesson 35
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Editing My Writing for Mistakes

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Learning Objectives

  • 1Read a piece of writing and spot common mistakes — missing capitals, missing end punctuation, and spacing errors
  • 2Use simple editing marks on paper to fix mistakes and rewrite the corrected sentence
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Mini Lesson

Every great writer edits their work! Editing means reading back through your writing to find and fix mistakes. It does not mean your writing was bad — it means you are making it even better!

The three things to check

  • Capital letters — every sentence starts with one. Names of people, days, and months always have one too.
  • End punctuation — every sentence ends with a period, question mark, or exclamation mark.
  • Spacing — there should be one clear space between each word, not zero and not five.

How to edit — the three reads

  • Read 1: Read slowly and look for missing capital letters.
  • Read 2: Check the end of every sentence for a punctuation mark.
  • Read 3: Check the spaces between your words.

Editing marks to use on paper

  • Circle a letter that should be capital: ( m ) → fix to M
  • Use a caret ^ to show where a punctuation mark is missing.
  • Draw a slash through extra spaces: the / / cat → the cat
A sentence with proofreading marksA sentence on ruled paper with red proofreading marks: the first letter is circled (missing capital), a caret shows a missing period, and a misspelled word is underlined with the correction above it.Spot the Mistakesmy dog is bigggi like cats^.big^.○ capital^ punctuation— spellingMark errors on paper, then fix them.
Proofreading marks show what needs fixing.
An editing checklistA five-item editing checklist — Capitals, Periods, Spaces, Spelling, and Sense — each item with a checked box.My Editing ChecklistCapitalsPeriodsSpacesSpellingSenseCheck each one before you finish.
Check off each item as you check your writing.
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Ask yourself: "Did I check capital letters? Did I check end punctuation? Did I check my spaces?"

Vocabulary
Editing
Reading back through your writing to find and fix mistakese.g. checking for capitals, punctuation, and spacing
Caret
A small mark ( ^ ) used to show where something is missinge.g. the^cat → shows a space belongs here
Proofreading
Carefully reading your work to catch spelling and writing errorse.g. reading slowly one word at a time
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← Lesson 34: Writing an Email with Adult HelpLesson 36: Reading My Work Aloud →