What it is. A sentence can open with a phrase before it reaches its subject.
Why our test works. Almost every child's paragraph opens every sentence with the subject, and it reads flat without anyone being able to say why. Counting the openings makes an invisible problem visible in five seconds.
Leans on. Lesson 16.
Watch for. Have them underline the first word of every sentence in their draft. The pattern is undeniable once it is marked.
Practice one sentence move: open with a phrase. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher writes a plain sentence, then makes the move once, saying what changed and why 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. Before anything new, sixty seconds of retrieval on U2 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 writes a plain sentence, then makes the move once, saying what changed and why the new version is better. For example: “The river rose.” becomes “After the storm, the river rose.”. Both stay on the board. 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 makes the same move on two sentences together, saying the change aloud before writing it. 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: On the worksheet: make this move on four sentences, double-spaced.
You close on the exit direction — Read one sentence before and after the move. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: Start somewhere other than the subject.
Have them underline the first word of every sentence in their draft. The pattern is undeniable once it is marked.