Ah poor King Charles. Except if I meant, “King Charles walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut off,” the contemplation of what it must be like to know that one is about to die is transformed into a ghost story of frightening, if utterly unbelievable, proportions.

Such is punctuation. What is for many school children just another silly thing that adults put into the language in order to annoy is, in fact, a vital part of clarifying meaning, allowing us to express ourselves more clearly than would otherwise be the case.

But there’s a problem. Although punctuation can be taught by giving rules and examples, what children need to do is to practise using punctuation. In fact they need to practise it a lot – without getting bored. Which is why we have created the computer program “Punctuate Plus”.

The program contains three types of exercises: a punctuation quiz set against the clock, a ‘shoot’ the missing punctuation mark game, and exercises within the ‘learn about punctuation’ section. The activities can be varied by selecting specific type or types of punctuation you want to look at, and dyslexic students will appreciate the text-speech feature. This is an excellent teaching resource, especially when used with an interactive whiteboard.

There is more than enough content to ensure that children are not presented with the same question twice, and you can also add your own questions.

There is more information at http://www.xavier-educational-software.co.uk/punctuatemx.shtml and there’s a link on the page to a free evaluation version of the software.

Three types of licences are available (single payment):

Single user £25
Basic site £99 – up to 25 users
Full site £250 – unlimited users
You can order:

By post: Xavier Software, 34 Tan y Bwlch Road, Llanllechid, Bangor, LL57 3HU
By fax: 01536 399012
By email: xavier@xes.org.uk
On line at: http://www.xavier-educational-software.co.uk/punctuatemx.shtml
If you have any questions please call 07895076062 or email xavier@xes.org.uk