SPaG word groups: coordinating conjunctions

First, a protracted simile.

In the UK education system, the English language is like a mechanic's toolbox and a piece of writing like a bike. You learn how to use the tool and then you bash the bike with it, hoping it'll fix it. You learn about another, more useful tool, and hope to bash the bike a bit more effectively. By the end of the Year 2, you've learned how to use the basic tools and, though the bike is pretty beaten up, you can go forward to build up your tool box with other, more refined tools to fix the bike so it's pretty tricked out by the end of Year 6. The idea is that the tools make the bike flashy and cool and your Year 7 child can use that bike to travel through secondary school, knowing when to dig into their toolbox in case anything goes wrong.

The problem for teachers and students alike is that it doesn't seem like a toolbox at all, more like a garage of fiddly tools. It can sometimes feel like it all needs to be learned at once, and forgetting how to use a tool, or not being taught properly, or just not understanding why this exact tool needs to be used at all, is similar to forgetting how to fix anything at all. It's oh so extremely tempting to fall back on the same tools to try and fix different problems.   

And each year needs to learn to learn precise tools and to use them well, otherwise the whole system collapses down around your child's ears and they never really learn to fix their bike. 

I haven't been in New Zealand long enough to comment on how the system works here, but it's certainly seems more freeing. There are fewer curriculum targets to hit for one thing - in Year 5, I had to cover 52 seperate objectives in English alone, which was bananas. There's less pressure on the children. The tool box is still being added to, but it's less time sensitive. Right now, it feels kinder.

But children still need to know what their writing and why it's good or bad and how they can improve it. Giving them a tool, like an adverb, helps them to develop as writers independently, once they've learned how to use it. I know adults who write amazingly well who couldn't tell you a Proper noun from an apple, but they also tend to be veracious readers and soak up grammar rules as they read the entirety of the British Library in a lazy afternoon. Unfortunately though, we can't base an education system on children being able to eyeball it and figure it out for themselves. We need to understand the tools that we give the children, so they in turn can use them to fix their own bikes.

And with that out of the way, here's the last major word group your Year 2 child needs to know. They've battled nouns. They've fought adjectives. They've danced away with verbs and gleefully taken on adverbs with abandon. Now it's time for...

Coordinating conjunctions

What the actual living Moses is a conjunction, I hear you cry. Well a conjunction is a word that connects two sentences or clauses together. In Year 2, we focus on connecting sentences together, so this:

Kiwis are a type of flightless bird. They are the national symbol for New Zealand.

Becomes this:

Kiwis are a type of flightless bird and they are the national symbol for New Zealand. 

This is an example of a coordinating conjunction. It connects two sentences which, on their own, make perfect sense but can be connected because they share the same topic, or theme. These sentences:

It's raining heavily. My dog is fluffy. 

Don't share a theme, so you wouldn't connect them with a conjunction.

FANBOYS

There are 7 coordinating conjunctions in total, for which the acronym we use is FANBOYS. This stands for:

For

And

Nor

But

Or

Yet

So

By Year 6, your child will have encountered all of these, but not in order. In Year 2, we focus on and, but, or and so. However, I'm going to rattle through them one by one to give you the full picture.

For

And already, we're in fairly arcane English here! For, as a conjunction, explains why something has happened. It's fairly interchangeable with 'because' (which is a subordinating conjunction, but I have a meeting in an hour and that's a whole other thing). Here's an example:

I left the party early, for I was tired.

Mostly, because would fit nicely into modern writing and for doesn't need to be used. However, if your child is writing a period piece, it could add that extra flavour of time-appropriate language:

My heart is weary, for my son is to become a chimney sweep.

Which really gets across that Victorian angst, don't you think?

And

As a conjunction, and connects two words which are to be taken jointly:

Bread and butter

Chalk and cheese

Or used to add another comment, like this:

I woke up and I gasped at the time.

When your child is learning about and as a conjunction, ask them to take away the and to see if the sentences by themselves make sense. This will help them to see the connection between full sentences and coordinating conjunctions.

Nor

Another older word, nor is useful for formal writing. Nor is negative and shows when neither option is used. It needs to be used when 'neither' comes before it in a sentence. Think of complaint writing to the management, like this:

Your product was neither cheap nor was your product convenient.

Nor also reverses the verb. In the example above, you can see that the noun phrase, 'your product' and the verb 'was' swap places after the conjunction nor. Otherwise, the complaint:

Your product was neither cheap nor your product was convenient.

Looks silly and you won't get a refund.

But

But contrasts with the first part of the sentence with the second part.

I was tired but I couldn't sleep.

I tell my children that but is a twist in the story of the sentence. The first half of the sentence sets up the expectation:

I wanted to go to the park

And the second half twists it:

But it was raining too hard.

It was fun coming up with wild and wonderful things that stopped the child from going to the park (dragons were involved, it was a whole thing). Try it with your child so they can see the contrast!

Or

Or shows an alternative to the first part of the sentence, like this:

We could watch TV or we could go outside.

Would you like a cup of tea or a mug of coffee?

It's simple to learn, but tricky to show in writing. It's good for direct speech, as your child can show their characters offering alternatives and choices, like this:

"Should we take the sun-dappled path to the left or head straight through the haunted forest?" asked Harry.

"Definitely go through the haunted forest," replied Alice, "It's a short cut!"

Yet

The last of the slightly stuffy conjunctions, yet shows something happening at the same time within the same topic. It can mean the same as however:

The night was dark, yet it held no terror for me.

Or nevertheless:

I told him to be quiet, yet he kept on talking.

Again, a bit on the Victorian melodrama side of things, yet is good for period pieces and more formal writing.

So

Finally, we get to so. As a conjunction, so means the same as 'for that reason'. It's not like because or for though! With so, you introduce the scenario first:

Greg had some extra cash

and then the solution:

So he started a savings account.

Greg has to have the cash before he can be fiscally responsible, whereas with because or for, it'd be the other way around, turning this:

Greg had some extra cash so he started a savings account.

Into this:

Greg started a savings account for he had some extra cash. 

A note on so. So is used a lot to start sentences, because we say it a lot in our speech. If you notice in your child's writing that they begin every sentence with 'so', ask them to think of another way to begin their sentence, as they are not using so as a coordinating conjunction. 

Run-on sentences

Children, in my experience, like learning about conjunctions because they're brand new shiny tools for their tool box. Sadly though, in their rush to use their new words, you can get work like this:

I went to the park but I was stopped for a dragon picked me up but he was a friendly dragon so I asked if it wanted to go to Australia or to Taupo and he said he had never been to Taupo so we flew over to Taupo and I wanted to ski with my dragon friend for I thought he'd enjoy it but neither myself nor the dragon knew how to ski yet we had a good time all the same. 

Urgh. 

Run-on sentences are sentences which go way, way past the human lung capacity to read in one go. Full stops go out of the window in a flurry of creative verve. My rule is that children are allowed one coordinating conjunction per sentence, then they have to use a full stop. It's not a hard and fast rule - there are dozens of run on sentences in this post alone I imagine - but it does slow children down and make them think about their writing. And that's the best we can possibly hope for.

I hope this was helpful and remember - whatever you're doing to help your child, you're doing great.