Despite the debate over the effectiveness of worksheets, they remain a prevalent resource for teachers. Effective worksheets go beyond having the learner circle and underline letters and words. Effective worksheets have learners (within their age/skill level) explain why selected words need to be capitalized and others do not, or they might have students demonstrate their understanding by writing an example using proper capitalization.
Lesson plans allow teachers to see the ways others have taught the principles of capitalization. By looking at other examples, teachers are able to customize a plan that works best for their situation based on their learners' needs. Incorporate one or two rules of capitalization into the lesson plan and expand as best suits your learners' pace. For example, a lesson plan for the first day might include some basics about punctuation and the full stop, explaining that a new sentence always starts with a capital letter even if that word is not a proper noun.
Instructional videos are a handy tool to aid visual learners. Videos reinforce a subject by allowing the learners to attach a visual aspect to verbal teaching techniques. Videos also bring the act of learning outside of the classroom, creating a richer, fuller learning experience.
Playing games and the process of competing with other players encourages learners to engage more of their senses, thereby creating an enriched learning environment. To compete effectively, learners must remember the basic rules of capitalization and recognize proper nouns as they work toward a goal. This active engagement with the material helps the learner embrace "why" instead of simply stating the rules. For instance a game developed by the Alabama Learning Exchange, has learners compete with each other by circling and highlighting proper nouns in published materials such as newspapers and magazine articles. After the allotted time has passed, and the words have been verified, the learner with the most proper nouns wins a prize.
Teaching capitalization and proper nouns may seem like a simple task; however, it is important to understand that sometimes even the simplest of topics can be confusing to a beginning learner. Therefore, it is important to keep these topics fresh. By interacting with other teachers either face to face or in online communities, teachers are able to share resources and ideas that keep the basics of understanding capitalization and proper nouns fresh and exciting for all learners.