A text is cohesive when the elements are tied together and considered meaningful to the reader

Ellipsis

Ellipsis is another cohesive device that can improve the flow of a sentence. Ellipsis refers to the removal of superfluous words, as the meaning can be inferred from the preceding clause. For example:
Without ellipsis:
“If James listens to music, he will have to dance to the music.”
With ellipsis:
“If James listens to music, he will have to dance.”
In this case, the sentence with ellipsis avoids repeating words, but still makes sense.

Repetition

Repetition can also be used as a cohesive device to highlight or emphasise important information. For example:
“Peter was running late. He had promised not to be late this time. If only he could get to places on time!”
In this example, the repetition of the adjective/adverb ‘late’ helps create a sense of urgency across the sentences.

Pronouns

Using pronouns in a sentence allows you to refer back to a noun without having to repeat it. For example:
Without pronoun:
“Billy listened to music while sitting in Billy’s car.”
With pronoun:
“Billy listened to music while sitting in his car.”
In this example, using a pronoun helps the sentence flow more smoothly, while still making sense.
This is also known as an anaphoric reference. A cataphoric reference is the opposite of this, referring to something later in a text. For example:
“Jess couldn’t wait to see him, but Jack would not be back until next week.”
In this case, the pronoun 'him' refers to Jack.

Remember...

It is also important for children to use the same tense throughout a text in order for it to achieve cohesion.
For more help with this, try these KS2 Tenses resources.

When will children learn about cohesion?

Children are taught techniques from Year 1 that will help them get to the point where, by Year 5 and Year 6, they can produce a range of cohesive devices in their writing.
In Year 1 children start this process by being encouraged to use the connective 'and' in their writing.
From Year 2, children will begin to expand on this by using a range of connectives, such as because and but in longer pieces of writing. This is also the stage where they will begin work on verb tenses with the understanding that these should be consistent within a piece of writing.
Then, according to national curriculum guidelines, children in lower KS2 (Year 3 and 4) will begin to learn about cohesion more explicitly. They will start by:
“choosing nouns or pronouns appropriately for clarity and cohesion and to avoid repetition.”
By upper KS2 (Year 5 and 6), children should be comfortable:
“using a wide range of devices to build cohesion within and across paragraphs.”