Spelling with apostrophes and understanding possession

Abstract

Background . Many spelling patterns are determined by the grammatical status of the words that contain them. An interesting example, which has been neglected in research till now, is the use of the apostrophe to denote possession. Aims . The aims of the two studies were (1) to find out how well children know that apostrophes can denote possession, before and after they have been taught this at school, (2) to see how sensitive this knowledge is to intervention, and (3) to explore the relations between this knowledge and grammatical awareness. Samples . We report two intervention studies on British school children aged from 9 to 11 years. Methods . In both studies the children were given pre‐ and post‐tests of their knowledge that genitive, but not plural nominative and accusative words, should contain apostrophes. An Experimental and a Taught control group received a 10‐trial intervention between pre‐ and post‐tests. In the second study contracted words were introduced in these tests as well and the children were also tested for grammatical awareness before and after intervention. Results . We found (1) that children of this age have striking difficulties over the use of the apostrophe in genitive words, (2) that it is possible to improve the children's use of apostrophes, and (3) that there is a connection between children's grammatical awareness and the use of apostrophes. Conclusions . We conclude that there are two main constraints on children's learning about apostrophes: (1) the extent of their explicit knowledge of grammar, and (2) the emphasis that is put on this aspect of spelling at school.

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