What does a child have to do to use capital letters in the 11+?

Apply capital letters to sentence starts and proper nouns. It is one of 41 named English skills in the 11+, in the punctuation strand, and this page carries 1 interactive exercise that practises it.

What is the trap in an 11+ use capital letters question?

A capital letter always needs a reason - an important-looking word that names no particular person, place, day or country keeps its small letter. The wrong answers on this skill are built out of that, not out of random numbers, so it is worth naming out loud before your child meets it under time pressure.

What is not part of use capital letters in the 11+?

The skill map draws the line here: Excludes internal sentence punctuation and stylistic capitalisation. A question past that line is testing a different named English skill, which is worth knowing before you spend a week practising the wrong one.

Which other 11+ skills should we practise alongside use capital letters?

The punctuation strand holds 9 skills that are tested together, and the pages next to use capital letters are mark possession, mark a sentence boundary and use a colon. Each has its own exercise and its own link, and none of them needs an account.

How can my child practise use capital letters for free?

Use Capital Toggle, embedded on this page. It is the exercise the skill map attaches to use capital letters, it runs in the browser with no account to make, nothing is scored, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. It also has its own link, so you can send it to a child without sending them anywhere else first.

English · Punctuation

Use capital letters

Apply capital letters to sentence starts and proper nouns.

Practise it now

Tap any word to switch its capital letter on or off. Capitals go on the first word and on the words that name one particular person, place, day or month, and nowhere else.

Loading the interactive exercise. Nothing you do here is saved or scored.

A worked example

One question of the kind this skill is tested with, worked all the way through: the reasoning, and what the wrong answers are there to catch.

Which words take a capital letter

Read the sentence and work out why each capital letter in the gap is there.

Every choice has the same letters in the same order - only the capitals change.

The prize was presented to … by the head teacher.

Choices for the gap: marek brennan, Marek brennan, marek Brennan, Marek Brennan.

Answer: Marek Brennan

How you get there

Both words in the gap need a capital letter because a person's first name and family name are both proper nouns, so "Marek Brennan" is the only complete version; "Marek brennan" and "marek Brennan" each capitalise one word and leave the other with a small letter.

Why the other answers tempt

A capital letter always needs a reason - an important-looking word that names no particular person, place, day or country keeps its small letter.

If they are stuck, say this

There is no sentence opening to help you here, so judge each word on its own: a name that belongs to one particular person takes a capital wherever it sits in the sentence.

Now do it live in Capital Toggle

Kitchen-table script for parents

Try this together

A friendly mini script for the breakfast table, school run or a quiet two minutes. Read it aloud as written, or make it your own.

Ready? Let's try Use capital letters together. The choices are marek brennan, Marek brennan, marek Brennan, Marek Brennan. Here comes the question: Read the sentence and work out why each capital letter in the gap is there. A handy clue is: There is no sentence opening to help you here, so judge each word on its own: a name that belongs to one particular person takes a capital wherever it sits in the sentence. Nice work. Here is the thinking: Both words in the gap need a capital letter because a person's first name and family name are both proper nouns, so "Marek Brennan" is the only complete version; "Marek brennan" and "marek Brennan" each capitalise one word and leave the other with a small letter. So our answer is: Marek Brennan. One sneaky trap is: A capital letter always needs a reason - an important-looking word that names no particular person, place, day or country keeps its small letter. Can you show me the first move in your own words? No rush; one calm step is enough.

What this exercise is doing

Capital Toggle

Tap any word to switch its capital letter on or off. Capitals go on the first word and on the words that name one particular person, place, day or month, and nowhere else.

The finished sentence is "The science teacher lives near Snowdon in Wales." A capital letter does two jobs and only two. It shows where a sentence starts, which is why "The" takes one whatever kind of word it is. And it marks a PROPER NOUN: the name of one particular person, place, day or month, of which there is only one being talked about. That is why "Snowdon", "Wales" take a capital wherever it appears in a sentence. Everything else stays small, and the words that catch people out are the ones that feel important: "science", "teacher". "science" feels important, but it names a kind of thing rather than one particular person, place, day or month, so it stays small. Putting a capital where one is not wanted is exactly as wrong as leaving one out, which is why this board scores both the same way.

What to say if they get stuck

Read it aloud and ask of each word: does this name ONE particular thing, or a kind of thing there are lots of?
Watch "science": it is the sort of word that gets a capital by accident. "science" feels important, but it names a kind of thing rather than one particular person, place, day or month, so it stays small.
Apart from the opening word, 2 words in this sentence name something particular. Everything else stays small, however important it feels.

Open Capital Toggle on its own page to share it

Related english skills

Mark possessionPlace an apostrophe for singular or plural possession.
Mark a sentence boundaryChoose punctuation that correctly ends or joins complete clauses.
Use a colonPlace a colon between a complete lead-in and its explanation or list.
Punctuate direct addressPlace the commas that separate a named addressee from the rest of the sentence.
Punctuate direct speechPlace the required punctuation around one direct-speech construction.
Punctuate a fronted adverbialPlace the comma that separates a fronted adverbial from its main clause.
Punctuate a listUse commas or a colon correctly for one list construction.
Punctuate parenthesisMark one parenthetical interruption with a consistent punctuation pair.

All english 11+ skills

Questions parents ask about use capital letters

Answered from what the skill map records about this skill, not from a template. Every answer here is on the page, and the same questions are the page's FAQ structured data.

: Apply capital letters to sentence starts and proper nouns. It is one of 41 named English skills in the 11+, in the punctuation strand, and this page carries 1 interactive exercise that practises it.
: A capital letter always needs a reason - an important-looking word that names no particular person, place, day or country keeps its small letter. The wrong answers on this skill are built out of that, not out of random numbers, so it is worth naming out loud before your child meets it under time pressure.
: Point at the next move rather than explaining the whole rule. There is no sentence opening to help you here, so judge each word on its own: a name that belongs to one particular person takes a capital wherever it sits in the sentence.
: The skill map draws the line here: Excludes internal sentence punctuation and stylistic capitalisation. A question past that line is testing a different named English skill, which is worth knowing before you spend a week practising the wrong one.
: The punctuation strand holds 9 skills that are tested together, and the pages next to use capital letters are mark possession, mark a sentence boundary and use a colon. Each has its own exercise and its own link, and none of them needs an account.
: Use Capital Toggle, embedded on this page. It is the exercise the skill map attaches to use capital letters, it runs in the browser with no account to make, nothing is scored, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. It also has its own link, so you can send it to a child without sending them anywhere else first.

Comprehension, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation are four different problems

A free diagnostic separates them, so practice goes where the gap actually is rather than on whichever one is easiest to set.

Start the free 11+ diagnostic