Year 1 English · Key Stage 1 · Writing – vocabulary, grammar and punctuation

Year 1 writing: finger spaces and joining with ‘and’

Two of the first writing rules in Year 1 are very practical: leave a space between each word, and use the word ‘and’ to join words and short sentences together. Children are also taught to hear where a spoken sentence begins and ends. These small habits make writing readable, and they are the foundation for the punctuation and longer sentences that come in Year 2.

Spaces and joining with ‘and’, explained

Spoken language flows without gaps, so it is not obvious to a five-year-old that written words are separated by spaces. Early writing often looks like “ilikemydog”. Teachers teach the finger space: after each word, children put a finger flat on the page and start the next word on the other side of it. Some schools use a lolly stick or a small plastic spacer. The space should be about a finger wide, large enough to see and small enough that the words still belong together. Children also learn that spaces go between words, not inside them, so “my dog” is two words and “dog” is one.

The second idea is joining with “and”. Children learn that “and” can join two words (“salt and pepper”, “red and blue”) and can join two short sentences into one (“I have a cat and I have a dog”). The joining word links ideas that belong together so that writing is more fluent and less like a list of separate statements. Teachers do not usually ask Year 1 children to use technical words such as “clause” or “conjunction”. They just show the pattern and ask the children to try it.

Alongside these, Year 1 children learn to recognise sentence boundaries in speech. When we talk, we mark where a sentence ends by dropping our voice and pausing. Teachers help children notice this by saying a few sentences in a row, clapping or tapping at each ending, and asking where one finished and the next began. Hearing the boundary comes first, and later it is shown in writing with a capital letter and a full stop, which is the focus of the neighbouring topic. The rest of the Year 1 grammar, such as adding -s or -es to make plurals and the prefix un-, is taught alongside, and children meet the Year 1 terms, such as letter, word and sentence, so that teachers and children can talk about writing together.

None of this is about writing long or complicated sentences. A Year 1 sentence like “I like cats and I like dogs” is exactly what is expected. The goal is clear writing in which every word can be seen, and a growing sense of when an idea has finished. Where a child cannot yet write a whole sentence independently, an adult may scribe part of it and the child still gets to experience the idea of words, gaps and sentences.

Words your child will hear

Word: A unit of language that has a meaning, written with a space on each side. “Cat” is a word.
Space: The gap between one word and the next. Teachers often call it a finger space.
Sentence: A group of words that makes sense on its own and says a complete idea.
And: A joining word. It can link two words or two short sentences.
Join: To put two things together. Not to be confused with joined-up handwriting.
Letter: One of the symbols we make words from. Spaces go between words, not between letters.

What the National Curriculum says

In Year 1, pupils should be taught to:

Develop their understanding of the concepts set out in English appendix 2 by leaving spaces between words
Develop their understanding of the concepts set out in English appendix 2 by joining words and joining clauses using ‘and’
Develop their understanding of the concepts set out in English appendix 2 by learning the grammar for year 1 in English appendix 2

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: spaces and ‘and’

A Year 1 child says, “I have a cat. I have a dog.” How do they write it with spaces, and join it with ‘and’?

Say the two sentences aloud and listen for the ends. The voice drops after “cat” and again after “dog”. That tells us there are two sentences.
Notice that both sentences start with “I have a”. When two ideas fit together, they can be joined with “and” to make one sentence.
Join them: “I have a cat and I have a dog.” Say it aloud to check it still sounds right.
Try a shorter join. If the beginning is repeated, the second part can be shortened: “I have a cat and a dog.” Here “and” joins “a cat” and “a dog”.
Count the words on fingers: I (1), have (2), a (3), cat (4), and (5), a (6), dog (7). Seven words means six finger spaces between them.
Write it, starting with a capital and putting a finger space after every word. Finish with a full stop. Reread, checking that each word has a gap on both sides.

I have a cat and a dog. Seven words, six spaces, one capital letter at the start and one full stop at the end, with “and” joining the two animals.

Common mistakes and how to help

Running words together or leaving a space inside a word

Speech has no gaps, and children hear sounds, not words, when they are sounding out. If they are concentrating on spelling, the space is easy to forget, and writing “my self” or “bed room” is a sign they are splitting words into the parts they hear.

What helps: Count the words on fingers before writing and put a finger space after each. When reading back, point to each word. If the gap is wrong, ask which part is one word and which is two.

Making the spaces too big or too small

Young writers can find it hard to judge the width of a gap. A space as wide as a hand makes words float away from each other, while a squeezed gap no bigger than the space between letters makes words run together.

What helps: A finger width is the rule. A lolly stick or the end of a pencil can be used as a spacer until it becomes automatic.

Chaining ideas with ‘and’ and never stopping

Children discover that “and” is easy and keeps the story moving, so they write “I got up and I had breakfast and I went to school and I…” without any full stops.

What helps: Read it aloud together and listen for where one thing that happened finishes and the next begins. Explain that sometimes we join two ideas with “and”, but sometimes we stop with a full stop and start a new sentence. Joining two ideas at a time is plenty at this stage.

Confusing ‘joining’ words with joined-up handwriting

At school children hear about “joining” in two senses. In handwriting it means connecting letters with a line, but in grammar it means linking words or sentences with “and”.

What helps: Use the phrase “joining with ‘and’” and keep handwriting for pencil lines. The two ideas are separate: a child joins words with “and” whatever their handwriting looks like.

How to help at home

The finger-space game. Write a short sentence together with a space between each word, then rub it out and ask your child to write it again with the gaps. Swap roles and write one with no spaces on purpose. Ask them to find and fix it.
Clap the sentences. Say three or four sentences in a row, such as a few lines from a favourite story, and ask your child to clap or tap at the end of each. It trains the ear to hear where each sentence stops.
‘And’ pairs. Make up pairs that go together, such as bread and butter, fish and chips, or socks and shoes. Then try joining two short sentences with “and”: “I like apples. I like pears.” becomes “I like apples and I like pears.”
Words on cards. Write a sentence on a strip of paper and cut it into words yourself. Mix them up, put them back in order, and glue them down with finger-width gaps. It makes the idea of a word visible.
Say it, count it, write it. Before your child writes a sentence, ask them to say it and count the words on their fingers. Then they know how many words they need to write and leave spaces between.

Leads on to

Year 2: Punctuation and types of sentence
Year 2: Noun phrases, tenses and joining words