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Basic 3 · Ghanaian Language · Capitalization

Capital Letters for Proper Nouns

In this topic you will use capital letters correctly for all kinds of proper nouns.

By the end of these notes you should be able to:

  • Explain why proper nouns need capital letters
  • Write days, months and festivals with capitals
  • Correct capital letter mistakes

What you already know

  • Writing names of people and places

Copy everything that has a blue line on its left into your notebook. The other parts are for reading.

Strand
Writing Conventions
Sub-strand
Capitalization
Indicator
B3.5.1.1.1 – Understand the use of capital letters to write proper nouns

Introduction

"on monday, kofi went to kumasi for the akwasidae festival." There are five mistakes! Proper nouns need capital letters.

1. Proper Nouns That Need Capitals

Proper nouns
TypeExamples
daysMonday, Friday
monthsJanuary, March
festivalsHomowo, Akwasidae, Damba
peopleKofi, Mrs Asante
placesKumasi, River Volta

2. Correcting Mistakes

Example

Correct: "on monday, kofi went to kumasi for the akwasidae festival."

  1. "on" starts the sentence: On
  2. monday → Monday
  3. kofi → Kofi
  4. kumasi → Kumasi
  5. akwasidae → Akwasidae

Answer: On Monday, Kofi went to Kumasi for the Akwasidae festival.

A sentence with capital letter mistakes circled and corrected
Figure 1: Correcting capital letters Copy the corrected sentence.Illustration: Sirbus

New words

capital letter
A big letter at the start of a proper noun.
month
One of the twelve parts of a year.
correct
To fix a mistake.
festival
A special yearly celebration.

Summary

  • Days, months, festivals, people and places need capital letters.
  • The first word of a sentence needs a capital letter.
  • We correct capital letter mistakes carefully.

Class activity: Capital Hunt

  1. Your partner writes a sentence with capital letter mistakes.
  2. Find and correct them.
  3. Swap and repeat.

You need: Printed cards of Ghanaian names, Place names, Chalkboard, Chalk, Exercise books, Pencils

Exercises

Answer in your exercise book first, then check your answers.

  1. 1. Which is written correctly?

    • A. January
    • B. january
    • C. JaNuary
    • D. jANUARY
    Show answer
    Answer: JanuaryMonths start with a capital.

  2. 2. Which festival name is correct?

    • A. Homowo
    • B. homowo
    • C. hOMOWO
    • D. homoWo
    Show answer
    Answer: HomowoFestival names are proper nouns.

  3. 3. Days of the week need capital letters.

    • A. True
    • B. False
    Show answer
    Answer: TrueThey are proper nouns.

  4. 4. "river volta" is written correctly.

    • A. True
    • B. False
    Show answer
    Answer: FalseIt should be "River Volta".

  5. 5. To fix a mistake is to ______ it.

    Show answer
    Answer: correctThat is correcting.

  6. 6. Correct: "ama was born in march."

    Show answer
    Answer: Ama was born in March.Names and months need capitals.

Homework

  1. Write the twelve months of the year with capital letters.