The Basics of Sentence Combining

 

We’ve all read sentences that sound like: “I walked to the park. I went down the slide. I played on the swing.” Inexperienced writers tend to write choppy sentences that follow the above structure.

Sentence combining is a technique for ‘smoothing out’ choppy sentences by changing the sentence structure and making it more engaging for the reader to understand. Eg - In the ‘I went to the park’ example, simply joining two sentences by adding a conjunction can make a difference like - I went down the slide and played on the swing.

The importance of teaching this technique

  • It helps students to make their writing more readable and engaging.
  • It creates opportunities to teach grammar and punctuation.
  • It teaches students how and why to revise their sentences. 
  • The process encourages interesting word choices and transition words. 


How to teach Sentence Combining?


Teacher modelling, discussion, and guided lessons can teach children to internalise these strategies and use them in revising their own writing.


1. Here are a few examples.

    The weather was rainy.

    The girls were playing soccer.

    The weather was rainy, but the girls were playing soccer.


2. The girl drank her orange juice.

The girl was thirsty.

The thirsty girl drank her orange juice.


One of the reasons for children to have difficulty in expressing their ideas in writing is lack of grammar skills. Sentence Combining is an effective way to work on those grammar skills that helps students to understand the importance of word order and how words are combined to create complete sentences.


Sentence combining provides repeated practice in using conjunctions, adjectives and turning other parts of the sentence into more cohesive sentences. Once they are able to use these skills to combine sentences effectively, they will be able to apply these skills in their writing.


Little Genius, the Best English Classes in Ahmedabad, has enriched many young minds with specialised English language, reading and communication skills. We aim to help transform the young learners into confident leaders. To turn your little learners into masters of the English language, get in touch with us. For more details, visit our website https://littlegeniusacademy.co.in/

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