What it is. Copying a good sentence puts its shape into the hand.
Why our test works. Children copy the MEANING and write their own version. Asking for mark-for-mark identity forces the eye back to the model repeatedly, which is what copying is for — and it doubles as the handwriting and punctuation lesson, done on writing worth the effort.
Leans on. Lesson 15, and Grade 1 lesson 9.
Watch for. A child who never looks back at the model is remembering, not copying. Cover it after ten seconds and the gap shows.
One sentence from the page, copied exactly — capital, spacing, period. Using Poodle Knows Poetry. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher reads the page from Poodle Knows Poetry aloud with the book open, then models the 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 reads the page from Poodle Knows Poetry aloud with the book open, then models the move on one sentence from it. 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 does the same move together on a second sentence, checking against the author's own. 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 a sentence worth copying — on the sheet, using the page we just read.
You close on the exit direction — Read out your sentence from Poodle Knows Poetry. — 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 it after ten seconds and the gap shows.