The Story Behind DOL Daily
Built by a grammar lover,
for grammar lovers.
I built DOL Daily to scratch my own itch. I'm a grammar enthusiast who wanted a way to keep those skills sharp, and when I went looking for something online, I found nothing. Worksheets, textbook PDFs, the occasional quiz. Nothing fun. Nothing daily. Nothing that felt like the experience I remembered from high school English class. So I built it myself.
Play Today's Sentence → Free, no account needed.What is Daily Oral Language?
Daily Oral Language (DOL) is a classroom exercise that has been a staple of English instruction for decades. Every day, a sentence packed with intentional grammar errors is displayed at the front of the room. Students work through it together, identifying and correcting capitalization mistakes, missing punctuation, confused words, and more.
Today, things are different. Spell check fixes your typos. Grammar extensions rewrite your sentences. AI writes the whole thing for you. Grammar has become invisible, and with it, the ability to actually think about language.
Enter DOL Daily. Five minutes. One sentence. No autocorrect, no suggestions, no AI finishing your thoughts. Just you and the same exercise English teachers have used for decades to make grammar stick. DOL Daily brings that tradition online. Free, daily, and open to anyone, whether you're an English teacher looking for a bell-ringer activity, a student building writing skills, or someone who just loves a good grammar challenge.
Mrs. Colgate: where it all started.
My high school English teacher, Mrs. Colgate, is the reason I love grammar. Every morning she'd fire up the overhead projector, and a sentence would appear on the screen, riddled with errors, waiting to be fixed. DOL was part of her class, and I looked forward to it every day.
DOL Daily is a thank-you note to Mrs. Colgate, and to every English teacher who pointed a projector at a wall and believed the details of language were worth caring about.
A nod to Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers.
If DOL Daily has a bible, it's this book. A Pocket Style Manual was the grammar reference in Mrs. Colgate's classroom, and it has been the gold standard for college writing instruction for over three decades. Every rule explanation and citation in DOL Daily traces back to Hacker and Sommers' clear, authoritative guidance.
Diana Hacker spent her career making grammar accessible without dumbing it down. Nancy Sommers, who joined as co-author, brought decades of research on student writing and revision to the work. Together their work is the reason so many students, professionals, and enthusiasts actually understand the rules rather than just fearing them.
View the book →In defense of the Oxford comma.
There is exactly one grammar rule I will argue about at a dinner party, and it is this one.
The Oxford comma is the comma placed before the final item in a list of three or more: "I love grammar, spelling, and punctuation." That last comma before "and" is the Oxford comma. Many people omit it. They are wrong.
A Pocket Style Manual by Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers is unambiguous: use a comma between all elements in a series, including before the coordinating conjunction.
The stakes are not small. Consider: "I'd like to thank my parents, Oprah Winfrey and God." Without the Oxford comma, Oprah and God are your parents. With it, they're just two items in a gratitude list. The comma does real work. Use it every time, without exception, without apology.
Grammar references we trust.
Every correction in DOL Daily is grounded in respected grammar authorities. When we say a comma goes there, we can tell you exactly why.
DOL by grade level.
DOL Daily draws sentences from across all grade levels. Whether you're warming up a 3rd grade class or challenging a 7th grader, the daily sentence travels with you.
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