The Subordinate Clause - PowerPoint

An educational resource designed to help Year 6 students understand and use subordinate clauses effectively in their writing has been made available. The learning objectives are twofold: firstly, to help students recognise subordinate clauses within complex sentences when reading, and secondly, to enable them to use subordinate clauses to create complex sentences in their own writing. Complex sentences are explained as those that consist of more than one clause, where a clause is defined as a group of words containing a verb or verb phrase. A main clause, which can stand alone as a simple sentence, is distinguished from a subordinate clause, which adds additional information but does not make sense on its own.

The resource provides examples of complex sentences and prompts students to identify the subordinate clauses within them. For instance, in the sentence "The moon, shining like a light, was directly overhead," the phrase "shining like a light" is identified as the subordinate clause. Further exercises encourage students to practice highlighting subordinate clauses in given sentences and to create complex sentences by adding subordinate clauses to simple sentences. This approach not only reinforces the concept of subordinate clauses but also enhances the students' ability to write more nuanced and detailed sentences in their compositions.