What it is. You have met these words and used them. Now you choose between them.
Why our test works. By the third year a child knows several words for nearly the same thing, and treats them as interchangeable. Forcing a comparison — which is CLOSER — is what turns a vocabulary into a set of choices. There is often no single right answer, and being able to defend the choice is the skill.
Leans on. Grade 1 met these words; Grade 2 used them. This year is choosing.
Watch for. A child who always picks the longer word has learned vocabulary, not register. Praise the child who argues for the plain word — that is the target, not an objection to it.
Match 5 school words to their everyday partners and use each in a sentence frame. The worked example is built on We discovered that ice floats., ringing discover. 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, on screen, one click per piece: the word discover alone first, and you wait — let them look at it before you give them the meaning. Then find out arrives beside it, and you point from one to the other with your hand. Then the sentence underneath: We discovered that ice floats.. Three clicks, three things said. Do not let the whole slide arrive at once — a slide that arrives whole gives the answer before the question is asked.
The We-do is the main whiteboard moment of the lesson — short answers, boards up on your signal, every child visible at once. Class matches each item to its partner aloud, then uses the frames in pairs. Every child says at least one frame. 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 through the five steps — match, choose, frame, write their own. The frames stay on screen while they write: Use the frame as often as you need it today. Say both halves of that — the frame is there if they need it, and it is better writing without it. Walk and note who used it; that is your group for tomorrow, not a mark against them today.
You close on the exit direction — Say one sentence using discover. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: Two ways to say it — and you choose.
A child who always picks the longer word has learned vocabulary, not register. Praise the child who argues for the plain word — that is the target, not an objection to it.