When to Teach Sentence Combining

Sentence writing is a foundational expressive language skill. Beginning in kindergarten, sentence writing should be taught systematically and cumulatively, with each new skill building on previously learned concepts. Once students have mastered these foundational skills (looking something like the writing sample below), instruction can progress to sentence combining as a way to expand and strengthen written expression.

A student writing example: The rain fell. The wind blew.

Prerequisite Skills

Before students are expected to combine sentences, they need to demonstrate proficiency with these prerequisite skills:

Know basic sound-letter correspondences to begin spelling words
Know how to form letters with ease. Formal instruction of letter formation, or handwriting, should begin in kindergarten.
Know how to write simple sentences and be able to construct them independently

Grade Levels: Systematic and Cumulative Approach

A graphic showing two simple sentences and then the combined sentence.

Sentence combining can be explicitly taught across all grade levels and subject areas, starting in kindergarten once students are proficient writing a basic simple sentence that contains a subject (noun) and predicate (verb).

From there they can learn to use the connector word (conjunction) and to add information to write a stronger simple sentence. For example, the sentences Tom goes to the park and Sam goes to the park become Tom and Sam go to the park. Likewise, the sentences The basket is big and The basket is heavy become The basket is big and heavy. Combining sentences with conjunctions at an early stage can also include adding adjectives before nouns, like The big basket is heavy.

Building upon that foundation with the conjunction and, students can learn to write sentences that contain two independent thoughts using the other coordinating conjunctions but, so, and or. Once they acquire that with mastery, students learn to add subordinating conjunctions like because, when, after, although. They can also advance from combining two thoughts to combining three or more thoughts by rearranging or removing words to create one complete sentence.

A scope and sequence for developing syntactic awareness through sentence combining instruction might look something like this. (The sentence structure examples below in bold are the focus of this skill explainer.)

Sentence Structure Hierarchy for Sentence Combining Instruction

Simple-to-Complex Sentence Structure	Sentence Pattern Using Parts of Speech	Example Sentence
1. Simple sentence	Noun + verb	Kim plays.
2. Compound simple sentence with coordinating conjunction	Noun and noun + verb Noun + verb and verb	Kim and Sam play. Kim plays and skips around.
3. Expanded simple sentence	Adjective + noun + verb Noun + verb + adverb	The happy child plays. The child plays happily.
4. Compound sentence with a coordinating conjunction	Noun + verb + and/but/so/or + noun + verb	Kim plays outside, but Sam reads inside. Kim plays outside, and meets up with friends. Kim plays outside, so she gets lots of exercise. Kim might play outside or she might stay inside.
5. Complex sentence with subordinating conjunction because	Noun + verb + because + noun + verb	Kim plays outside because she loves to run around.
6. Complex sentence with additional subordinating conjunctions	Although/since/when + noun + verb, noun + verb	Although Kim usually plays outside, she plays inside on rainy days. Since it's a beautiful day, Kim plays outside. When Kim plays outside, dad prepares dinner.

Responsive teachers notice what sentence patterns students are skilled with in their writing, and systematically teach them the next pattern one at a time. At Reading Universe, we recommend teaching grammar using a function-first approach. See our skill explainer on grammatical building blocks to learn more.

2. When to Teach Sentence Combining

Sentence Combining Skill Explainer

Prerequisite Skills

Grade Levels: Systematic and Cumulative Approach

Sentence Structure Hierarchy for Sentence Combining Instruction

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