examples of reported speech ks2

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Direct or reported? – types of speech

A written task to help children understand the difference between direct and reported speech. Children look at an example of each and analyse their features. They then rewrite reported speech as direct speech in a sentence, and vice versa.

A useful resource for sharpening dialogue writing skills in KS2.

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• Direct Speech And Indirect Speech Resources And Worksheets Ks2

Direct speech and indirect speech – 9 of the best resources and worksheets for KS2 SPaG

Help children know when and how to use speech marks in direct speech, and why not to use them in indirect speech, with these lessons, activities, worksheets and more for Key Stage 2 grammar…

What is direct speech?

Direct speech in writing is where you are writing down a direct quotation of someone’s actual words, and these are marked by inverted commas eg “I’ll meet you at the library tomorrow morning,” Sharon said.

What is indirect speech?

Indirect speech (or reported speech), on the other hand, is where you are given a rough approximation of what someone said, not their exact words, and doesn’t require quotation/speech marks, eg ‘Sharon told them she’d see them in the library tomorrow.’

What are inverted commas?

Inverted commas go before and after direct speech, surrounding what was said.

Direct speech examples

• “I’m tired,” she yawned.
• “What’s that sound?” he asked. “It’s coming from under the floorboards!” Elle replied.
• The police officer shouted, “There they are!”

Indirect speech examples

• Mrs Weismann asked you to go see her in her office.
• My dad told me to clear up my room.
• Jerry said he found the book out in the playground.

1 | Getting speech punctuation right at KS2 guide

Perfectly punctuating dialogue is something that can trip up even experienced editors – but this quick guide should help pupils get it right, from the start.

Read it here.

2 | Punctuating direct speech resource pack

This powerful KS2 grammar resources pack provides everything you need to teach a series of five lessons on punctuating direct speech, culminating in an extended writing task where children can use their grammatical understanding in context.

Get this resource pack here.

3 | Direct speech challenge worksheets

Similarly, this bright, appealing grammar worksheet is an excellent way to practise and revise using direct speech in Year 4.

It is divided into five sections: understand, challenge, test, explain and apply.

Activities include SATs style questions and opportunities for creative writing responses, with eye-catching images as prompts.

Find this one here.

4 | Learn speech conventions through knock, knock jokes worksheet

This resource sheet from Rachel Clarke uses a small-steps approach to slowly scaffold children through the rules and conventions of dialogue. In the first instance pupils are simply asked to rewrite knock, knock jokes in speech bubbles.

Once they’ve got the hang of this, they should then be encouraged to write the name of the speaker and ‘said’ before each speech bubble. The second level asks pupils write each line of the knock, knock joke using inverted commas.

Each example on this sheet starts with the reporting clause before the dialogue, which enables pupils to practise adding a comma after the reporting clause.

Download it here.

5 | Speech marks washing line

This handy idea was created by Clarice Morley, an English teacher in a Pupil Referral Unit, who found her boys were struggling with the use of speech marks.

They invented three characters – male, female and a rabbit – and produced some labels such as “Rory exclaimed” and “Brenda whispered”. Clarice then stretched a washing line across the board, and had two pegs with the speech marks on.

The boys would write something someone would say onto a piece of paper, then they matched one of the labels with one of their speeches, and hung the speech on the washing line.

They soon grasped it is only the reported speech that hangs on the line, and the pegs (speech marks) keep it in place.

Print out the worksheet for this resource here.

6 | How to use inverted commas video guide

For a nice little introduction or recap to inverted commas, watch this video of Mr Thorne take you through their uses.

It’s clearly explained with large captions across the bottom so that children can see his examples written out with the correct punctuation.

7 | Speech mark rules

There are many “rules” of speech marks, but no definitive list, and you don’t want to overwhelm children with too many while they’re just learning.

So this Rising Stars list of five rules is a nice size for children to read and take in.

Check it out here.

8 | Quotation marks worksheet

This two-page worksheet has six tasks and an extension all revolving around punctuating speech.

So it starts with putting speech marks into sentences, then putting speech marks and all other punctuation, before building up to punctuating longer passages.

Print it here.

9 | Inverted commas worksheet set

This resource set has three parts. One is ‘Witch and Tiger Conversation’, which shows ten pictures with blank speech bubbles. Children choose names for the witch and the tiger, then create the contents of the conversation.

Next they re-write this conversation in the form of a story by adding phrases such as ‘said Tom’ and ‘asked Joe’ as well as speech marks and other punctuation.

The second and third parts are ‘Missing Speech Marks’ worksheets, where children need to add speech marks to sentences.

Get all this here.

Browse more  SPaG games .

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Indirect Speech

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Let's have some KS2 English quiz fun with indirect speech! It's also known as 'reported speech' – that explains it well. If someone talks to you, and you tell someone else what they said, that's indirect speech. Using too much talking in your stories can be a bit confusing (and not so fun for the reader), so let's practise using reported speech.

You know it's important to check your work for mistakes and spelling errors. In this type of writing, make sure everything's the right way around. Take a few minutes to read your writing again until you're really happy with it.

Check out all the answers in this quiz carefully before picking your choice.

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Direct speech: inverted commas

I can identify inverted commas in a speech sentence.

Lesson details

Key learning points.

• Writers can use speech sentences to show a character speaking in a text.
• If a character speaks, the writer must signal this with specific punctuation.
• Inverted commas are the punctuation marks that signal direct speech to the reader.
• Direct speech is the term used for a character speaking out loud in a text.
• Direct speech helps us learn more about characters in a text.

Common misconception

Pupils may use the informal term 'speech marks'.

'speech marks' is a term that signals the same thing as 'inverted commas' i.e. the dialogue in a sentence, but it is better to use the grammatical term 'inverted commas'.

Direct speech - the term used for a character speaking out loud in a text

Inverted commas - a pair of punctuation marks that signal direct speech to the reader

Signal - show or direct attention to

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited ( 2024 ), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Starter quiz

6 questions.

Supreme Court tosses out claim Biden administration coerced social media companies to remove content

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday threw out claims that the Biden administration unlawfully coerced social media companies to remove contentious content.

In reaching its conclusion, the court overturned an injunction that would have limited contacts between government officials and social media companies on a wide variety of issues if it were allowed to go into effect. The Supreme Court had previously put the injunction on hold .

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre welcomed the ruling, saying it will help the administration "continue our important work with technology companies to protect the safety and security of the American people, after years of Republican attacks on public officials who engaged in critical work to keep Americans safe."

The court found on a 6-3 vote that plaintiffs did not have standing to sue, in part because they had failed to adequately allege that the content moderation at issue was as a result of government actions.

Writing for the majority, conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett said the plaintiffs, Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, along with five social media users, had failed to show they had suffered harm at the hands of specific government officials.

She noted that social media platforms routinely moderated content even before the alleged coercion happened.

"In fact, the platforms, acting independently, had strengthened their pre-existing content moderation policies before the government defendants got involved," she added.

While the evidence shows government officials "played a role" in moderation choices, that is not enough to justify a sweeping injunction, Barrett wrote.

The plaintiffs also failed to show that previous examples of content moderation could be linked to the communications government officials had with the platforms, she added.

The states, for example, alleged that a Louisiana state representative's Facebook post about the Covid-19 vaccines was restricted because of government intervention, but Barrett said there was "no evidence to support the states' allegation."

Justice Samuel Alito wrote a sharp dissent, joined by two other conservatives, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.

Alito suggested the dispute was "one of the most important free speech cases to reach this court in years," saying the government actions were "blatantly unconstitutional."

The majority "permits the successful campaign of coercion in this case to stand as an attractive model for future officials who want to control what the people say, hear and think," he added. That the coercion was "more subtle" than other examples made it "even more dangerous," he said.

Jenin Younes, a lawyer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance who represents the individual plaintiffs, said the court had "green-lighted the government's unprecedented censorship regime."

Her clients include doctors who questioned Covid-19 policies and Jim Hoft, founder of The Gateway Pundit, a right-wing news site.

Hoft had claimed that posts about a notorious laptop owned by Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden's son, were suppressed. But Barrett wrote in Wednesday's ruling that there was no evidence to show that content moderation decisions could be traced to the FBI or the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, as he claimed.

Barrett pointed out that Hoft cited an allegedly censored post written by his brother, not one he wrote himself, which was another reason he could not show harm.

Alito focused on another plaintiff, health activist Jill Hines, who Barrett agreed had the best argument for standing.

Hines was subject to content moderation by Facebook over posts she wrote questioning pandemic health guidance, including the use of vaccines, at a time the government was communicating with social media companies about the spread of misinformation. She also reposted content from vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent presidential candidate.

Alito wrote that it is "reasonable to infer ... that the efforts of the federal officials affected at least some of Facebook's decisions to censor Hines."

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

The plaintiffs filed the underlying lawsuit alleging that U.S. government officials went too far in putting pressure on platforms to moderate content.

The lawsuit included various claims relating to activities that occurred in 2020 and before, including efforts to deter the spread of false information about Covid and the presidential election. Donald Trump was president at the time, but the district court ruling focused on actions the government took after Joe Biden took office in January 2021.

In July last year, Louisiana-based U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty barred officials from “communication of any kind with social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later narrowed the scope of Doughty’s injunction. But it still required the White House, the FBI and top health officials not to “coerce or significantly encourage”  social media companies  to remove content the Biden administration considered misinformation.

The case is one of two the justices decided this term about the practice known as “jawboning,” in which the government leans on private parties to do what it wants, sometimes with the implicit threat of adverse consequences if demands are not met.

In the other case, the court ruled in favor of the National Rifle Association, which claims that a New York state official unlawfully pressured companies to stop doing business with the gun rights group.

Those challenging the government actions say that in each case there was a violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment, which protects free speech rights.

Alex Abdo, litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Colombia University, which has raised concerns about the dangers of jawboning, said the court missed an opportunity to clarify the law on the issue.

"The platforms are attractive targets for official pressure, and so it’s crucial that the Supreme Court clarify the line between permissible attempts to persuade and impermissible attempts to coerce," he said. "This guidance would have been especially valuable in the months leading up to the election.”

Lawrence Hurley covers the Supreme Court for NBC News.

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English- Direct and indirect speech- Journalistic Writing KS2

Subject: English

Age range: 7-11

Resource type: Lesson (complete)

Last updated

12 September 2022

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In this lesson students will learn the difference between direct and indirect speech. They will identify this in a newspaper report and write their own version of a newspaper report using both versions of speech.

This lesson is one of a block of lessons on journalistic writing. To view these please visit: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/resource-12170817

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A bundle is a package of resources grouped together to teach a particular topic, or a series of lessons, in one place.

English- Journalistic Writing BUNDLE of lessons KS2

Journalistic writing is the style of writing used to report news stories in newspapers, television broadcasts, on radio and on the Internet. This bundle includes lessons on: - Forms of news - Features of newspaper articles - Direct and reported speech in newspaper reports - Identifying bias - Writing a newspaper report All lessons have included presentations, lesson plans and resources! A great bundle deal! Leave a review for this resource and send a copy of your receipt to [email protected] to receive a FREE single resource of your choice!

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