Teacher / Parent Student
         
Register | Login Problems

Recently Visited Pages (More Info)
Possessive Nouns

The forming of the possessive forms of nouns can be one of the most difficult concepts to teach and to learn. SpellingCity provides lists to help teach how to correctly spell and use the singular and plural possessive forms of Dolch nouns and how to distinguish them from simple plurals and from contractions.

Possessive, Plural, or Contraction – Sources of Confusion
Students get confused by the possessive forms of nouns for several reasons:
  1. Many students mistakenly add an apostrophe to make the simple plural form of nouns.
  2. Many students get confused by the rules of where to place apostrophe on the plural and singular form of the possessive.
  3. Many students get confused about forming the possessive or the plural or the possessive plural when the singular form of the noun ends with an "s".
  4. Many students mistakenly only associate apostrophes with contractions.

Here are five lists that include the possessive forms of nouns:

List Names (Root Word)

MatchIt! 

 Which Word?   Sentence Unscramble
Four Forms of Nouns Part 1

 Play

 Play

  Play
Four Forms of Nouns Part 2

 Play

 Play

  Play
Noun Plurals and Possessives

 Play

 Play

  Play
Singular Possessives & Contractions

 Play

 Play

  Play
Irregular Plural Nouns

 Play

 Play

  Play

Forming the Possessive Singular Possessive Form of Nouns

A possessive noun shows that someone (or something) owns an item. In the simplest cases, an apostrophe and the letter s are added to the noun to show that ownership. Some examples are baby’s, boy’s, and army’s. Coming soon! SpellingCity.com will have nouns available in the singular possessive.

Is it a plural noun?

Many students think that to form the plural of noun, they should add an apostrophe and s. So, to clarify the difference, teachers must show students that for most nouns, just s without any punctuation is added to a noun to make it plural. Examples include boys, girls, and books. Coming soon! SpellingCity.com will have nouns available in the plural possessive.

Singular or Plural Possessive

The possessive forms of plural nouns provide another complication for students. For many of the nouns, students understand they simply need to add the s to form the plural and then add the apostrophe to show ownership. Some examples are boys’, girls’, and books’.

It is forming the possessives of irregularly formed plural nouns that presents more confusion. Children’s, women’s, men’s are just some of these nouns. Teachers are challenged to show students that first they should write the plural form of the nouns, and then they should add the apostrophe and the s to show ownership.

Nouns that end with S

Forming the possessives of nouns already ending in s can be tricky. The words class and grass are examples.

To form the singular possessive, just add the apostrophe. They become class’ or grass’. Some teachers have their students add the apostrophe and the s to help students see the possessive form. So, class’s and grass’s are acceptable spellings of the words.

To form the plural possessives of these same nouns, explain that first you make the nouns plural – classes; basses.

Once you create the plural forms of the nouns, you add the punctuation that shows ownership – the apostrophe. The plural possessive forms of class and grass are classes’ and grasses’.

Apostrophe Means Contraction – A Frequent Mistake

Students see an apostrophe, and they mistakenly assume the word is a contraction because they assume that a possessive and a contraction are the same. Students may already be familiar with contractions. The differentiation needs to be made clear. Contractions are a combination of two words with the apostrophe taking the place of letter (or letters) omitted when the new word is formed. In possessives, no letter is being omitted.

Coming Soon to SpellingCity

SpellingCIty will be adding lists of nouns showing the spelling of the same noun in its singular, plural, singular possessive, and plural possessive forms in June. We will add some lists combining both singular and plural possessive forms of nouns with contractions. Also, coming soon are lists of the singular and plural possessive forms of Dolch nouns. These lists, along with SpellingCity games MatchIt, Which Word, and Sentence Unscramble, will provide students practice with forming plural and possessive nouns.

Word Lists:

Four Forms of Nouns Part 1- aunt, aunts, aunt's, aunts', boy, boys, boy's, boys', lady, ladies, lady's, ladies', doctor, doctors, doctor's, doctors'

Four Forms of Nouns Part 2- uncle, uncles, uncle's, uncles', friend, friends, friend's, friends', bird, birds, bird's, birds', farmer, farmers, farmer's, farmers'

Noun Plurals and Possessives – boys, boy’s, boys’, uncles, uncle’s, uncles’, aunts, aunt’s, aunts’, ladies, lady’s, ladies’, doctors, doctor’s, doctors’, friends, friend’s, friends’, birds, bird’s, birds’, farmers, farmer’s, farmers

Singular Possessives & Contractions – it’s, who’s, where’s, boy’s, aunt’s, lady’s, doctor’s, uncle’s, friend’s, bird’s, farmer’s

Singular possessive nouns – Coming Soon

Plural possessive nouns – Coming Soon
 
© 2010 SpellingCity.com