What it is. Chunking is a habit, not a strategy to remember.
Why our test works. Final return of the syllable work in this block. Fluency is the target now, not accuracy alone.
Leans on. Lessons 13 and 25.
Watch for. Speed with accuracy. A child who is accurate but very slow still needs the cycle.
Write what you hear: two-syllable words. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher says each item once at speaking pace, then again slowly. Clap the syllables, write 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. Before anything new, sixty seconds of retrieval on U5 set 1: ask, take the answers from boards rather than hands so you see all thirty, and do not re-teach — note who has lost it and carry on.
Then you do one yourself, building it on the board and leaving it up: Teacher says each item once at speaking pace, then again slowly. Clap the syllables, write one chunk at a time. The first is modeled on the board, sound by sound, nothing erased. 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 writes one item together, then checks it against the board letter by letter before the next is given. 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: Write each item the teacher says: rabbit, garden, winter, basket. Check every one against the board.
You close on the exit direction — Point to the one you had to fix. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: Chunks, every time.
Speed with accuracy. A child who is accurate but very slow still needs the cycle.