One of the key milestones in a child’s development as a writer comes with the ability to create complex sentences. This means that the writer can reason, argue, justify and add extra information while varying the rhythm and emphasis of sentences. This little game is worth playing either on a board or by using mini whiteboards.
Write a simple sentence such as: “Homer ate the burger.” Challenge the children to add an extra clause using a connective. The extra “chunk” the clause may come before or after the original sentence: “As there were no doughnuts, Homer ate the burger.” Or “Homer ate the burger while Bart chewed on a carrot.”
Draw the children’s attention to the way in which the new sentence either starts with a connective or the connective is used after the original.
Check that where the subordinate clause precedes the main clause, it is followed by a comma: “Although the camel had bitten him, Homer grinned.”
Pie Corbett is a literacy consultant