What it is. A summary sentence at the foot must cover the whole page, not the top of it.
Why our test works. Children summarize what they read first, because it is freshest and the effort of holding the whole page is real. Naming the bottom of the page as the test catches exactly that failure, and it is checkable in three seconds by you or by them.
Leans on. Lesson 2.
Watch for. Write a summary that only covers the top half, name the fault aloud, then fix it in front of them.
Close a page with a single summary sentence. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher writes a full page, then composes one sentence at the foot that covers all of it, The class reads Writing Book 5, p.42 — our own page, 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 writes a full page, then composes one sentence at the foot that covers all of it, rejecting a first attempt aloud for being only about the top half. 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 judges two candidate summary sentences for a page already on the board. If the answer is a whole sentence rather than a word, take it on their notebooks instead, because a sentence written on a whiteboard is written once and destroyed.
They open Writing Book 5 to page 42 and read it with you. Stop at the worked example and let them look at it.
Exit directions in full, standing still, before anyone moves. Then they work alone: Take a page of notes and write one summary sentence at the foot.
You close on the exit direction — Read your summary sentence. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: One sentence at the foot that covers the page.
Write a summary that only covers the top half, name the fault aloud, then fix it in front of them.