Commas Before Joining Words
Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, so, yet) when joining two independent clauses in a compound sentence
How to tell they’ve got it
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Try this together
When your 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?
Where this sits on the map
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solid = must come firstdashed = helps
Curriculum alignment
Candidate matches to official curriculum codes — machine-suggested, unreviewed (v0.1).
Show candidate curriculum codes · 3 ACARA · 1 VIC
Australian Curriculum v9 candidate
understand how to use the comma for lists, to separate a dependent clause from an independent clause, and in dialogue
use commas to indicate prepositional phrases, and apostrophes where there is multiple possession
understand that complex sentences contain one independent clause and at least one dependent clause typically joined by a subordinating conjunction to create relationships, such as time and causality
Victorian Curriculum 2.0 codes & levels only
These are candidate alignments generated by semantic matching — machine-suggested and unreviewed (v0.1), not official or verified mappings. For official curriculum content see australiancurriculum.edu.au, curriculum.nsw.edu.au and f10.vcaa.vic.edu.au. Don’t rely on them for registration or compliance purposes.