CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.2.2b

ELA2nd GradeConventions of Standard English

The Standard

Use commas in greetings and closings of letters.

Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students use commas after the greeting and closing in a letter. They identify where each comma belongs and apply the pattern in their own writing.
What Mastery Looks Like: Students place a comma after a letter greeting, as in “Dear Sam,” and after a closing, as in “Sincerely,”. They use both commas correctly when writing their own short letters.
Common Misconceptions: Students may leave out the comma, place it after the person’s name, or use a period instead. They may also put the closing comma after their own name.
How to Assess It: Give students a short letter with missing punctuation. Ask them to add commas to “Dear Maya” and “Your friend” and explain each choice.

Lesson moves

Give pairs sentence strips for greetings, closings, names, and commas, then have them build and punctuate a friendly letter.
Ask students to write two greetings and two closings, then explain aloud where each comma belongs.
Play Comma Detective by having students circle correct greetings and closings and repair incorrect ones on task cards.
Write a thank-you note to a school helper, using a greeting, closing, and correctly placed commas.

Free download

A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.2.2b, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.

PDF, US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white.

Learning progression

If students are struggling here, check these first.

Mastery here sets students up for these next.

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