KS2 KS3 literacy punctuation speech marks direct and indirect speech SPAG worksheet

Three short literacy worksheets about identifying and correctly punctuating direct and indirect speech, and converting between them. Ideal for year 5 (who are confident readers), year 6, and maybe year 7 and year 8. Works well as a starter, main SPAG activity, homework, home learning or cover work.

• The first sheet involves adding speech marks to sentences containing direct speech.

• The second sheet involves simply identifying whether a sentence is an example of direct or indirect speech.

• The third sheet involves converting between direct and indirect speech.

I gave this as a starter for a cover lesson for my “top” year 5 class, and it was given as homework for another year 5 class. Children seemed to enjoy this, and it did help consolidate the correct punctuation of direct speech. I recommend this as a consolidation activity to children who have a firm understanding of written speech.

I recommend giving this 15-20 minutes to complete, with more time if children are cutting and sticking this into books themselves (a good idea for fine motor skills), and then 10 or so minutes to self-assess or peer-assess. The answers are unambiguous, so it is easy to self/peer-mark as a whole class.