Teaching coordinating conjunctions as part of your grammar curriculum can feel deceptively simple. Students memorize FANBOYS, complete a few practice sentences, and seem to understand the concept.

But then they start writing.

Suddenly, commas appear in the wrong places (or are missing entirely!).

While coordinating conjunctions were always one of the first grammar concepts I taught my classes, my students continued to need to practice using them until the last day of class. They take more time and practice than one would think.

The good news is that coordinating conjunctions become much easier to understand when they’re introduced as part of a larger grammar curriculum.

Once students can identify complete thoughts, they can use conjunctions to build stronger compound sentences, and then create more complex sentences with confidence. In this post, you’ll find some tips for introducing coordinating conjunctions and incorporating them into your larger grammar curriculum. (Learn more about sequencing your grammar instruction here!)

What Is a Coordinating Conjunction?

A coordinating conjunction is a type of conjunction that connects words, phrases, or clauses of equal rank. In other words, it joins ideas that have the same syntactic importance within a sentence.

Personally, I don’t think students need to know which conjunctions are coordinating conjunctions specifically until you’re ready to teach clauses and/or sentence types.

I’m a big fan of using the acronym FANBOYS to help students learn the coordinating conjunctions. The mnemonic FANBOYS stands for for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so. Each of these short words helps connect related ideas in English grammar.

Unlike a subordinating conjunction, which creates a dependent relationship between clauses, coordinating conjunctions connect ideas that can stand on equal footing. This is important for students to know when they’re ready to move beyond simple sentences or when using proper punctuation becomes more important.

Why Students Struggle With Coordinating Conjunctions & Grammar

Students often memorize FANBOYS without understanding what the conjunction is joining. They may recognize the word “and,” but still be unsure whether it connects two words, two noun phrases, or two independent clauses.

That is why coordinating conjunctions are really a lesson about the parts of a sentence, not just the parts of speech. Before students can punctuate a compound sentence correctly, they need to recognize complete thoughts.

For example, in the sentence, “I need milk and eggs,” it’s not really important if a student knows what type of conjunction “and” is. “And” is joining together two equal nouns. Most students will intuitively use “and” correctly in this case. 

However, when coordinating conjunctions are used to add an additional independent clause to a sentence, they begin to struggle. That’s because this is the case in which writers suddenly need a comma. Students can’t just write down their ideas; they need to know how they function in the sentence to determine correct punctuation.

For example, “and” functions very differently in this sentence: “I went to the store, and I bought milk.” Now “and”, as a coordinating conjunction, is joining two equal (independent) clauses. Because it’s joining together clauses, it now requires the comma that precedes “and.”

Begin With The Basics: Clauses & Sentence Structure

Because knowing what coordinating conjunctions join is so important, make sure students understand basic sentence structure before introducing FANBOYS.

The best way to teach coordinating conjunctions is to begin with independent clauses and simple sentences. Students should be able to identify a subject, a verb, and a complete thought before they start combining sentences.

For example, consider the following sentences:

The bell rang.

The students packed their bags.

Both are complete sentences because each one can stand alone. When we combine them, we create a compound sentence:

The bell rang, and the students packed their bags.

Now students can clearly see that the coordinating conjunction joins two independent clauses with the help of a comma. (It’s really important to stress the addition of the comma here! Students will forget it all the time!)

This is the foundation for understanding comma usage with coordinating conjunctions.

If your students need an introduction to sentence structure, I recommend this lesson on the parts of a sentence. If they’re ready for clauses and conjunctions, you can dive right into this Sentence Types Lesson.

Emphasize The Comma Rule

One of the most common grammar mistakes students make is forgetting the comma before coordinating conjunctions joining clauses.

The rule is much simpler than students often think: use a comma before a coordinating conjunction only when it adds an independent clause to the sentence.

Compare the following examples:

I finished grading, and I finally relaxed.

This sentence needs a comma because both sides are complete thoughts.

I finished grading and my lesson plans.

This sentence does not need a comma because the conjunction is joining words, not independent clauses.

Giving students many opportunities to compare these sentence patterns helps them understand the difference much more quickly.

Again, you cannot emphasize or review the coordinating conjunction and comma rule too much. Students will forget it all the time (or they’ll panic and add a comma every time they see a FANBOYS word).

If you want to teach your students more comma rules, try this Comma Lesson.

Covering Other Conjunctions

Coordinating conjunctions aren’t the only conjunctions out there. Students understand coordinating conjunctions more deeply when they see how they fit into the larger system of conjunctions in the English language.

While I find that understanding subordinating conjunctions is less important (students will usually use words like “because” correctly intuitively), you should introduce them once students grasp coordinating conjunctions.

A subordinating conjunction creates a dependent clause. 

You can also introduce correlative conjunctions, which work in pairs such as either/or and neither/nor. 

You could introduce conjunctive adverbs, which also connect related independent clauses, but I usually save these for when I teach colons and semicolons.

Older grammar terms may also appear in textbooks, including cumulative conjunction, alternative conjunction, adversative conjunctions, and illative conjunctions. Personally, I don’t bother teaching much beyond coordinating vs. subordinating conjunctions. Most students will just never need to know more than that. 

Teaching Coordinating Conjunctions & Grammar Tip: Color Coding

Once students know the FANBOYS coordinating conjunctions, and they understand how to use them, it’s time to start drilling and practicing.

One of the most effective strategies for this is color coding. Students highlight one independent clause in one color and the second independent clause in another. Then they circle the coordinating conjunction and box the comma.

This visual approach makes the relationship between clauses much easier to see. Instead of guessing, students can literally identify the two complete thoughts being joined.

If you don’t have a classroom set of highlighters or need students to visualize sentences on the fly, you can just have them underline independent clauses. This is what I usually do in my lesson presentations and what I ask students to do in my Grammar Warm-ups.

Teaching Coordinating Conjunctions & Grammar Tip: Connect Grammar Instruction to Writing

Coordinating conjunctions become much more meaningful when students apply them in their own writing.

After teaching coordinating conjunctions and clauses, ask students to revise a paragraph by combining simple sentences into stronger compound sentences. They can also identify places where conjunctions are missing, correct comma errors, and vary sentence structure. You can also have them peer-edit one another’s work with special care taken for coordinating conjunctions if your class is working on a writing assignment.

Once you’ve taught using coordinating conjunctions, make sure that knowledge is reflected in some way on your writing rubrics. After mastering coordinating conjunctions, students should never write a fragment or run-on again!

Teaching Coordinating Conjunctions & Grammar Tip: Use A Visual Reference

Students usually remember the acronym FANBOYS, but they often forget when to use a comma with it.

That is why I created a free coordinating conjunctions classroom poster. It gives students a quick visual reminder of each coordinating conjunction, the FANBOYS mnemonic, and the comma rule for joining independent clauses.

Keeping the poster visible throughout the year gives students an easy reference whenever they are writing.

You can download the poster for FREE right here. If you don’t want to hang it as a poster, you can make smaller copies in black and white to hand out to students as a reference guide.

Conclusion

Teaching coordinating conjunctions grammar is not really about memorizing seven short words.

It is about helping students understand how ideas connect.

When students can identify independent clauses, recognize complete sentences, and apply the comma rule in their own writing, they move beyond memorizing FANBOYS and begin using coordinating conjunctions effectively.

Pair explicit instruction with plenty of examples, authentic writing practice, and visual supports such as a classroom poster, and your students will build stronger sentence skills that carry into every piece of writing they produce.