What it is. You have met these and used them; now you choose between them.
Why our test works. By Grade 5 a child holds several near-synonyms and treats them as interchangeable. Forcing the comparison is what turns a vocabulary into a set of choices, and being able to defend the choice is the skill.
Leans on. Grades 1-4 built single words and phrases. Pairings are new.
Watch for. Do not accept a near-pairing because the meaning is clear. *Make a conclusion* is understandable and wrong, and letting it pass is how it sets for good.
Match 7 academic words to their everyday partners and use each in a sentence frame. The worked example is built on A great deal of rain fell., ringing a great deal of. The class reads Writing Book 5, p.45 — 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, on screen, one click per piece: the word a great deal of alone first, and you wait — let them look at it before you give them the meaning. Then a lot of arrives beside it, and you point from one to the other with your hand. Then the sentence underneath: A great deal of rain fell.. 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 their notebooks instead, because a sentence written on a whiteboard is written once and destroyed.
They open Writing Book 5 to page 45 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 through the five steps — match, choose, frame, write their own. The frames stay on screen while they write: You may use the frame for two of your three. Try the third without it. 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 a great deal of. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: How much, and how many — precisely.
Do not accept a near-pairing because the meaning is clear. *Make a conclusion* is understandable and wrong, and letting it pass is how it sets for good.