Ambiguous Sentences: Get children thinking about the links between grammar, punctuation and meaning.
Ambiguous sentences are a great way to get children thinking about the links between grammar, punctuation and meaning.
Encourage children to look in newspapers, website headlines, adverts and posters etc – and start a collection of your own.
Do please share your best ones with us
Examples:
Giant waves down Queen Mary’s funnel.
New study on obesity looks for a larger study group.
Free whales
We saw her duck
Look at the cat with one eye.
I once saw a fish riding my bike.
Another way to get children thinking about how punctuation is linked to meaning is to write some unpunctuated clauses and see how many ways they can be punctuated.
Here’s a few to have a go with:
It was splendid news about uncle jack dying to see you in the new year would be great
Watch out man eating snakes
Do you want a woman bishop
The thing that first caught my eye was a large silver cup that Charles had won for skating on the mantelpiece
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