What it is. Copying means reproducing every letter, space, capital and period exactly as they are.
Why our test works. Children copy meaning rather than marks — they read the sentence, remember it, and write their own version. Asking for mark-for-mark identity makes the eye go back to the model repeatedly, which is the skill copying is for.
Leans on. Lesson 8 — they know what the parts of a sentence are.
Watch for. A child who never looks back at the model is remembering, not copying. Cover the model after ten seconds and the gap shows immediately.
Copy a three-word sentence with correct letters, spaces, capital and period. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher copies a sentence slowly, checking each of the four things aloud as it is written. The class reads the teaching page printed at the top of the sheet — our own writing, so a child who was absent can still get the lesson.
You open by saying where this sits — what it follows and what it is part of — in one sentence, and then you give them the reason it matters, in your own words, for about ten seconds.
Then you do one yourself, building it on the board and leaving it up: Teacher copies a sentence slowly, checking each of the four things aloud as it is written. The board copy is what they look back at when they stall, so it stays there for the whole lesson.
The We-do is the main whiteboard moment of the lesson — short answers, boards up on your signal, every child visible at once. Class copies one sentence together, stopping after each word for a check. If the answer is a whole sentence rather than a word, take it on the printed sheet instead, because a sentence written on a whiteboard is written once and destroyed.
They read the teaching page — printed at the top of today's sheet — with you, either read-aloud or FASE, never round robin. Stop at the worked example and let them look at it.
Exit directions in full, standing still, before anyone moves. Then they work alone: Copy three three-word sentences exactly. Check each one for the capital and the period.
You close on the exit direction — Show me a sentence with all four things right. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: Copy it exactly — every mark.
A child who never looks back at the model is remembering, not copying. Cover the model after ten seconds and the gap shows immediately.