Sentence combining is an effective instructional approach for developing students’ understanding of sentence structure, syntax, and language conventions, which ultimately supports written communication and reading comprehension. Rather than teaching grammar as a set of isolated rules, sentence combining places language instruction within meaningful reading, writing, and oral communication contexts.
This approach aligns directly with the Ontario Language Curriculum. In Appendix B: Language Conventions Continuum for Reading and Writing, Grades 1–9, Overall Expectation B3, the curriculum highlights:
“These language conventions need to be introduced and developed within the contexts of writing, reading, and oral communication, rather than in isolation, so that students can learn to use them to communicate and comprehend in meaningful ways.”
Sentence combining helps students learn how sentences work while they communicate ideas that matter.
Sentence Combining: The Basics
Sentence combining is an instructional routine where students take two or more short, related sentences and combine them into a single, more sophisticated sentence. The goal is not necessarily to name grammatical structures, but to understand how sentence parts work together to express relationships between ideas.
This focus reflects another key statement from the curriculum:
“Emphasis should be placed on the function and role of a structure within a sentence, instead of simply its name.”
Through sentence combining, students learn how conjunctions, clauses, and phrases add meaning, clarify relationships, and improve the flow of ideas.
Research highlights that sentence combining is an effective way to teach syntax and sentence-level writing skills. Sentence combining appears to support stronger sentence structure and quality of written composition (e.g. Saddler et al., 2018).
Sentence Combining in Action
Sentence combining can be used across grades and content areas, with sentence structures and conventions changing as students progress through the B3 Language Conventions continuum.
In Grade 1, the B3 continuum introduces compound sentences. Sentence combining provides a natural, meaningful way to support this expectation within content-area learning. For example, during a Grade 1 science lesson on the basic needs of living things, a teacher might begin with two simple declarative sentences:
Plants need water.
Plants need sunlight.
Through shared writing, the teacher can model identifying the who or what in each sentence by underlining plants in both sentences. The teacher draws attention to the fact that both sentences share the same who or what, even though each sentence tells different information. The sentences can then be combined using a coordinating conjunction:
Plants need water, and they need sunlight.
At this stage, the instructional focus is on how and joins two ideas that share the same who or what, helping students communicate a more complete thought. Students can practise combining sentences orally, using pictures, classroom experiences, or teacher modelling to support their language.
In Grade 3, the B3 continuum introduces complex sentences. Sentence combining continues to support this expectation by helping students connect ideas using subordinating conjunctions that show reasons or explanations. For example, during a Grade 3 science lesson on how plants make their own food, a teacher might begin with:
Plants use sunlight to make food.
This helps them get energy.
The teacher can identify the who or what of the first sentence (plants) and model how the second sentence explains why the first is true. The ideas can then be combined:
Plants use sunlight to make food because this helps them get energy.
Here, because connects a reason to an idea, allowing students to explain scientific concepts more clearly. Students see how sentence structure supports meaning, aligning with the B3 focus on building sentences that effectively communicate ideas.
Across grades, the emphasis remains on meaning rather than terminology. The sentence structures change, but the instructional purpose remains the same: helping students understand how sentences work to communicate ideas in meaningful contexts.
Language Conventions Through Sentence Combining
Sentence combining is a practical and powerful way to teach the B3 language conventions continuum across grades and content areas. It allows educators to teach sentence structures from simple to complex in a purposeful sequence, integrate grammar instruction into content areas, emphasize meaning and communication rather than terminology, and support students in producing clear, increasingly sophisticated sentences.
When students learn how sentences work by actively building them, grammar becomes a tool for thinking and communication. For more information on sentence combining, check out the section on sentence combining in ONlit’s B3 Language Conventions Continuum, this practice guide on sentence combining from the Australian Education Research Organisation, or Dr. Bruce Saddler’s book Teacher’s Guide to Effective Sentence Writing.
