Capital Letters

Correct capitalization doesn’t always come naturally to children, but we’re here to help!

A capital letter is an uppercase letter used at the start of a word in various circumstances.

There are many capitalization rules your child must follow when writing. The most simple rule is that a complete sentence always begins with a capital letter, but there are many others your child should be familiar with as they start writing!

Here’s a list of when capital letters should be used:

• The first letter of the first word of a sentence
• Acronyms / abbreviations (NASA, UN, USA)
• Headings
• Days of the week & months of the year
• Titles of books and films
• Proper nouns
• People’s names and surnames
• Names of continents, countries, and nationalities (Europe, New York City, England, France, French, British, Spanish)
• Holidays (Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving)
• The word “I” anywhere in the sentence (When it rains, I love to stay inside to read!)

Fun fact: the four seasons (spring, summer, fall, and winter) can be started with a lowercase or uppercase letter!

Activity & resource

Get your child to practice their capital letters knowledge by completing this free resource: