Email Rules for Primary Grade Students

As you are working emailing friends from classes around the country, it is important that you write properly in emails. We have learned in class how to write a friendly letter with proper greetings, spelling, closings, and paragraphs. These rules are not the same for emailing. Typically, emailing is less formal than writing letters, so it is ok to write in statements and misspell occasionally. Read the following rules which you will need to use when writing emails to other students.

1. When you write your subject line, identify the main idea or topic of your email. This will let your reader know what you are writing about.

2. In your email, your greeting does not have to include “dear,” but should address the person by the name that you call him or her. This is usually a person’s first name, unless the person is an adult. In which case, you will need “Mr.” or “Mrs.”

3. The body of your email should be kept short. You do not need to add details like you do when writing a story for ILA class.

4. If you are writing about two different ideas in one email, make it a new paragraph.

5. Do not use bold, italics, or underlining, because some email applications will make this word look funny and will be hard to read.

6. Do not joke in emails. It is hard for someone to read and understand when you are kidding without seeing you smiling. You don’t want your far away friends to become upset because he or she misunderstood you.

7. If you want to show feelings use symbols: : - ) for happy and : - ( for sad.

8. Try your best to use proper spelling and writing conventions. Use spell check to help you before sending your email.

9. When you are closing your email, remember to include your name. Sincerely is not necessary, but you may use it.

10. Another thing to remember is, always remind your email buddy who you are and where you are from so that he or she is able identify who he or she is talking to. Example: Hi! This is Joe from MD.