Cohesion Links
Cohesion Links is a reading comprehension strategy in which students learn to notice and interpret the connecting words and phrases (called cohesive devices or connectives) that signal how ideas in a text relate to one another, such as because, however, in contrast, therefore, meanwhile, and as a result. These connectives act as the "signposts" of a text, marking logical relationships like cause and effect, comparison, contrast, sequence, and addition (Crosson & Lesaux, 2013). Drawing on Halliday and Hasan's (1976) account of textual cohesion, the strategy teaches readers that a passage is a connected web of meaning rather than a list of separate facts. Because connectives carry abstract meaning and are easy to skip or misread, explicit attention to them helps readers track the author's reasoning and build a coherent mental model of the text.
How it’s typically applied
- 1Select a short, content-rich passage and pre-identify the cohesive links it contains, grouping them by the relationship they signal (cause/effect, contrast, sequence, addition, example).
- 2Introduce one relationship type at a time. Name it, define it in student-friendly terms, and post an anchor chart with the signal words and an icon (e.g., an arrow for cause/effect, a balance scale for contrast).
- 3Model with a think-aloud: read a sentence containing a connective, pause at the word, and say aloud what it tells you about how the two ideas connect ('However tells me the next idea will go against what I just read').
- 4Have students highlight or circle the cohesive links in a passage, then label each with the relationship it signals, using the anchor chart as a reference.
- 5Guide students to restate the relationship in their own words or complete a sentence frame ('The author uses because to show that ___ caused ___').
- 6Move to guided and independent practice: students sort connectives by function, swap one connective for another in a sentence and discuss how the meaning changes, and predict what is likely to come next when they reach a signal word.
- 7Bridge to writing by having students use the same connectives to link their own ideas, which reinforces the reading-writing connection and consolidates the relationships.
Why it works for emergent bilingual students
Connectives are a high-leverage but frequently overlooked form of academic vocabulary that emergent bilingual students benefit from learning explicitly, because their meaning is abstract and they are easy to skip while reading (Crosson & Lesaux, 2013). A study of fourth-grade students from Spanish-speaking homes found that comprehension of connectives was related to oral vocabulary and listening comprehension, and that some connectives were harder than others depending on the semantic relationship they marked. This pattern indicates that targeted, explicit teaching is worthwhile (Crosson et al., 2008). Emergent bilingual students also bring a powerful asset: the ability to reason about cause, contrast, and sequence transfers across languages, because skills developed in one language support reading in the other through linguistic interdependence, so first-language knowledge of these relationships supports second-language reading (Cummins, 1979). Teachers can build on this in two ways. First, several academic connectives are true Spanish-English cognates that students can recognize by sight (finalmente/finally, en contraste/in contrast, consecuentemente/consequently). Second, many other connectives have direct home-language counterparts that, while not cognates, name relationships students already control in Spanish or Portuguese (porque/because, sin embargo/however, por lo tanto/therefore). Pairing each English signal word with its cognate or counterpart lets students anchor the new form to meaning they already own, rather than starting from zero.
Adapting it across proficiency levels
Pre-Production
At Pre-Production, focus on building meaning for a small set of the most common, concrete connectives (because, and, then, but) through gesture, pictures, and home-language equivalents. Use an anchor chart with icons (arrow, plus sign) and let students point to or sort picture cards that show cause/effect or sequence. Accept nonverbal responses (pointing, matching) and pair every signal word with its Spanish or Portuguese counterpart so students can anchor new English forms to relationships they already control in their first language.
Beginning
At Beginning, students match a small bank of connectives to the relationship each one signals and complete cloze sentences with the correct word from a posted word bank (e.g., 'I was tired ___ I went to sleep'). Provide sentence frames, cognate supports, and color-coding (one color per relationship). With a partner, students highlight signal words in a short text and place them under the right category header.
Intermediate
At Intermediate, students independently locate connectives in grade-level text, label the relationship, and restate it using a sentence frame ('The word however shows the author is contrasting ___ with ___'). Introduce a wider range, including contrast and conclusion markers (although, in contrast, as a result), and have students swap one connective for another to discuss how the meaning shifts. Talking through these choices in pairs or triads builds the oral language that supports connective comprehension.
High Intermediate / Advanced
At High Intermediate and Advanced, students analyze how chains of cohesive links across multiple sentences and paragraphs build an author's argument, distinguish subtle connectives (nevertheless, consequently, conversely, on the other hand), and evaluate how a different connective would change the logic. They apply the same devices in their own academic writing and explain their reasoning in extended oral or written responses, drawing on a reference chart only as needed.
In the classroom
During a fifth-grade science unit on ecosystems, the teacher displays the sentence: "The rabbit population grew quickly. However, the number of foxes also increased, so the rabbit population soon dropped." She thinks aloud, pausing at however ("this tells me the next idea pushes against the first one") and at so ("this signals a cause and effect"). Students then receive a short text on food webs and, with partners, highlight every cohesive link, sort them onto a chart under Cause/Effect, Contrast, and Sequence, and write each relationship in their own words. An emergent bilingual student observes that however does the same job as sin embargo in Spanish, and the teacher adds that home-language counterpart to the anchor chart for the whole class. Students close by writing two sentences about a food web of their own, using because and however to connect their ideas.
Research basis
Connectives are the 'signposts' of texts and a special kind of academic vocabulary that students, especially English learners, need to be taught explicitly in order to comprehend challenging text.
Crosson, A. C., & Lesaux, N. K. (2013). Connectives: Fitting another piece of the vocabulary instruction puzzle. The Reading Teacher, 67(3), 193-200. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1197 [link]
Among language-minority children from Spanish-speaking backgrounds, comprehension of connectives is related to vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension, and the difficulty of a connective depends on the semantic relationship it signals.
Crosson, A. C., Lesaux, N. K., & Martiniello, M. (2008). Factors that influence comprehension of connectives among language minority children from Spanish-speaking backgrounds. Applied Psycholinguistics, 29(4), 603-625. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716408080260 [link]
Cohesion in a text is created through cohesive devices, including conjunction, which specifies how what follows is systematically connected to what came before; recognizing these ties supports comprehension.
Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. Longman.
Through the linguistic interdependence hypothesis, competence developed in a bilingual student's first language supports literacy development in the second language, so first-language reasoning about logical relationships can support second-language reading.
Cummins, J. (1979). Linguistic interdependence and the educational development of bilingual children. Review of Educational Research, 49(2), 222-251. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543049002222 [link]
Sheltered instruction for English learners calls for explicitly teaching academic vocabulary and language structures and for using comprehensible input with scaffolds, which is the instructional framework within which connective instruction is delivered.
Echevarria, J., Vogt, M. E., & Short, D. J. (2017). Making content comprehensible for English learners: The SIOP model (5th ed.). Pearson.
Cohesion Links is a named, field-tested instructional strategy (Strategy 33, "Cohesion Links: Understanding the Glue That Holds Paragraphs Together") that teaches students to recognize the connecting words signaling how ideas relate. The strategy's name and classroom packaging for English learners originate with Herrell and Jordan, distinct from the underlying theory of cohesion itself, which is Halliday and Hasan's.
Herrell, A. L., & Jordan, M. L. (2020). 50 strategies for teaching English language learners (6th ed.). Pearson. [link]
Sources reviewed by an independent second-language-acquisition specialist and an adversarial citation audit.
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