My 9-year-old was working on editing some sentences where she was looking for errors and correcting them. I noticed she tended to overlook some of the more common errors, such as misspellings of it’s/its, your/you’re, two/to/too, there/their/they’re, and whose/who’s.
She knows how to use each of the words the proper way, but catching them in writing, especially writing that is not hers, is something completely different.
I wanted a way for her to remember to check for those common misspellings, so I came up with a little graphic and a saying to help her remember which words she should always double-check when writing or editing.
“It’s your two there! Whose?”
The saying doesn’t really flow off the tongue, but it’s not terribly difficult to remember. And hopefully it will help her recall which words she should always pay special attention to when she’s editing any writing at all.