Year 5: Sentence Openers Lesson Sequence

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Teach students how sentence openers create cohesion and guide readers through a text with this comprehensive lesson sequence, designed to explicitly teach how authors use the beginning of each sentence to maintain focus, connect ideas and strengthen meaning.

Note: Get the most from this lesson by using it with the matching teacher slides and independent student activities. Click here to view the bundle.

Built around the I Do, We Do, You Do model, this lesson sequence provides a scaffolded pathway from explicit teacher modelling to guided analysis and supported application. Building on students' understanding of paragraph structure and topic sentences, learners investigate how sentence openers signal the topic, give prominence to key ideas and support the logical progression of information throughout a paragraph.

Through examination of sentences and cohesive paragraphs, collaborative discussion and structured learning experiences, students identify sentence openers and analyse how they connect ideas across sentences. They explore how authors maintain cohesion by repeating, referring to or gradually developing a topic through carefully selected sentence beginnings. 

What's included in this lesson sequence?

• Clear learning intentions and success criteria focused on identifying and using sentence openers to create cohesion
• Explicit teaching of how sentence openers signal the topic and guide the reader through a text
• Modelled examples demonstrating how sentence beginnings connect ideas across sentences and paragraphs
• Guided analysis of cohesive paragraphs, exploring how authors maintain focus by repeating, referring to and developing ideas
• Explicit teaching of how connectives, pronouns, tense changes and new information contribute to textual cohesion
• Structured opportunities for students to identify, analyse and explain cohesive language choices
• Supported practice constructing cohesive paragraphs with purposeful sentence openers that strengthen flow and clarity
• Built-in check-ins for learning to monitor understanding throughout the lesson
• A reflective exit ticket to inform next-step teaching and differentiation

Perfect for upper primary classrooms, this lesson sequence strengthens students' understanding of textual cohesion by teaching them how purposeful sentence openers guide readers through a text. Students develop the confidence to analyse author choices and create cohesive, well-connected paragraphs that communicate ideas with clarity and precision.

Format: PDF

Aligned to Australian Curriculum Outcome: Understand how texts can be made cohesive by using the starting point of a sentence or paragraph to give prominence to the message and to guide the reader through the text. (AC9E5LA04)

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