Commas Before Joining Words
PROCEDURALUse a comma before a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, so, yet) when joining two independent clauses in a compound sentence
Mastery Evidence
- Place a comma before the coordinating conjunction in a compound sentence, e.g. 'I wanted to go outside, but it was raining'
- Distinguish compound sentences (two independent clauses) from simple sentences with compound predicates, e.g. 'She sang and danced' needs no comma but 'She sang a song, and he played the piano' does
- Edit writing to insert missing commas before coordinating conjunctions in compound sentences
Assessment Prompt
“When [child] joins two complete thoughts with a word like "but" or "so" — like "I wanted to go, but it was raining" — do they put a comma before that joining word?”
Curriculum Standards2 alignments
L.4.2cCommon Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical SubjectsUse a comma before a coordinating conjunction in a compound sentence.
L.5.2bCommon Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical SubjectsUse a comma to separate an introductory element from the rest of the sentence.
Prerequisites2
- Commas in listshardAges 6—11
- Subordinate clauseshardAges 6—9
Show full prerequisite tree
- Commas in lists hard
Comma before coordinating conjunction builds on existing comma knowledge from list commas
- Subordinate clauses hard
Learners must understand coordinating conjunctions joining clauses before learning the punctuation rule for compound sentences
- Joining Words with 'And' hard
Must be able to join with 'and' before learning subordination and other co-ordinating conjunctions
Unlocks1
- Punctuating ClausessoftAges 10—11