English · Punctuation
Punctuation Pinball
Three marks are missing. Pick one from the tray, then tap the hole it belongs in.
Free to use and free to share. There is no sign-up, no score, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. What you may do with it, in full.
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Why this works
Punctuation is the writing down of your voice. Read "Slow down Ben you will trip" aloud and you will hear two small pauses and one urgent ending. When you speak straight to somebody by name, that name gets a comma on each side to fence it off from the rest, which is why Ben needs one before and one after: without them, "Slow down Ben" sounds like Ben is the thing being slowed down. The ending is chosen by tone, and a warning shouted at somebody about to fall takes an exclamation mark rather than a full stop. Say the sentence, mark the pauses, then choose the ending that matches the feeling.
Helping a child through Punctuation Pinball
Hints, least revealing first
- Read it out loud. Every place your voice pauses is a hole that wants a comma.
- Ben is being spoken to, not talked about. A name you are addressing gets fenced off on both sides.
- The last hole ends the whole thing. Is this a calm statement or a shout of warning?
When they finish it: “The sentence reads itself!”
6 11+ skills this exercise practises
Each of these has its own page, with a worked example on it. 1 of the 6 names the mistake that skill attracts.
- Mark possessionPlace an apostrophe for singular or plural possession.
- Mark a sentence boundaryChoose punctuation that correctly ends or joins complete clauses.
- Use a colonPlace a colon between a complete lead-in and its explanation or list.
- Punctuate direct addressPlace the commas that separate a named addressee from the rest of the sentence.
- Punctuate direct speechPlace the required punctuation around one direct-speech construction.
- Punctuate a listUse commas or a colon correctly for one list construction.
You can reuse this. Here is exactly how far that goes
Tutors, teachers and editors keep asking, so this is the answer in writing rather than by email. You do not need to ask permission, and you do not need to tell us.
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Embed this exercise
Paste this into your own page and the exercise runs there, playable, for your readers or your students. It is 900 pixels tall by default and as wide as the column you put it in; change the height if your layout wants a different one.
The embedded copy has no header, no footer and no sign-up prompt. It records nothing about the child using it, on your page just as on ours.
Punctuation Pinball touches 6 skills at once
Which means a child who struggles with it could be stuck on any one of them. A free diagnostic across all four subjects narrows it to the one.