What you need to

know about
conjunctions.
 Conjunctions are words that join words,
phrases and clauses. There are two types:
coordinating conjunctions and subordinating
conjunctions.

1. Coordinating conjunctions (or coordinators).

Coordinating conjunctions (or coordinators)

join words, phrases or clauses that are of equal status.
The three main coordinating conjunctions are and,
but and or.
Joining words and phrases Joining clauses
• My favourite meal is fish and chips. • We went to the park, but it started to rain.
• Billy and Sandra are getting married next week. • Tom went shopping and bought a book.
• You need to bring your swimming kit, a beach • You can go swimming or you can go to the
towel and some sun cream. cinema.
• We can have pasta or rice with our dinner. • Claire ran, cycled and swam every week.
 Correlative coordinating conjunctions are pairs of
coordinators which work together to join words, phrases or
clauses. They include either. . .or. . ., neither. . .nor. . . and not
only. . .but also. . . .

We’ll either go to Spain this year, or we’ll stay at home.

She has neither the good sense nor the humility to resign.
The cafe not only serves great food, but it also has a fabulous
view of the sea.
2. Subordinating conjunctions (or subordinators).

Subordinating conjunctions (or subordinators) join

clauses that are not of equal status. One clause is
dependent for its meaning on the other. Some common
subordinating conjunctions are because, if, although, as,
since, so, unless and while. Some subordinators consist of
more than one word, such as even if, in order that and as
long as.

1. Come inside before you catch cold.

2. Although I was tempted, I decided not to buy it.
3. We wondered whether they had got lost.
4. It was such a long time since she had played the
piano in public.
 Some conjunctions can function as
other word classes, such as adverbs or
prepositions, so it’s important to look carefully
at the way they are used in a sentence.

1. Can you call me after lunch? (preposition)

2. I’ll try to get there the day after. (adverb)
3. She went to bed after she had turned out
the lights. (conjunction)
Teaching about conjunctions

It makes sense to teach about conjunctions

while teaching about coordination and subordination.

The sentence-combining approach, whereby

pupils manipulate and experiment with grammatical
structures, is known to be particularly effective. You
might give pupils a number of clauses and a range of
conjunctions and ask them to combine them in as
many ways as possible to make different sentences. because
and
although
Jimmy wanted to play football while
it started to rain if
until
Auntie Mary was coming to stay as
he needed to tidy his bedroom but

she came every August for two weeks So

since
You might give pupils a sentence with the same basic
content and ask them to explain how the conjunction
changes the meaning in each:
• Sam learnt to swim because he went to the pool with
his friends.
• Sam learnt to swim and he went to the pool with his
friends.
• Sam learnt to swim so he went to the pool with his
friends.
• Sam learnt to swim when he went to the pool with his
friends
Developing writers often string multiple clauses
together using ‘and’, as this reflects the speech patterns
which are familiar to them. However, as children develop
as writers, you’ll want to encourage them to vary their use
of conjunctions and to think about sentence structure.
You may well pick this up as you respond to their writing,
perhaps by asking them to edit a short section, by limiting
the number of times they use ‘and’ or by offering two or
three other conjunctions to be used as appropriate.
THANK YOU