You’re ready for the new year. You have a plan for literacy instruction. But now looking at your class and each student, you’re wondering if it will work. How do you start when kids are coming in at different levels? How do you keep moving everyone along when different students have different strengths and challenges? Differentiation in the classroom makes the difference.
What is differentiated instruction?
Differentiated instruction means adapting instruction to meet the needs of different students so they have the best opportunity to learn. Differentiation in the classroom happens in four areas:
- Content — What a student needs to learn and the resources they use
- Process —The kinds of activities students use to understand the content
- Products — How students show what they know
- Learning Environment — Anything about the classroom feel and how the class works together
If you’re feeling daunted by the idea of using different methods for instruction and practice for different students, hang on. Differentiation in the classroom doesn’t have to be hard or time consuming.
What does differentiation in the classroom look like?
It’s one thing to know what differentiated instruction is. It’s another actually to implement it. Let’s look at what differentiation in the classroom looks like.
There are lots of ways to differentiate instruction. These are just a few examples for each of the four areas.
Content — Using a scope and sequence to target kids where they are. Providing audio books with printed books.
Get your FREE phonics scope and sequence here to help you plan and differentiate your literacy instruction:
Process — Use tiered activities where students learn the same thing but with different levels of support. Using manipulatives to support learning.
Products — Using small group, pair, or individual projects as options for students to share learning. Giving options for how students express what they know, such as creating a poster, writing a report, or doing a skit.
Learning Environment — Allowing movement as needed for learning. Creating quiet learning areas and other spaces for working together.
Examples of differentiated instruction in reading
Now let’s look at some ways to actually put that into practice in your reading classroom. You want to make adjustments and offer differentiated instruction that helps each kid without making them feel like they are getting something different from other kids.
Use manipulatives like play dough mats. Play dough mats allow students to spell words by modeling the letters with play dough. And you can use the mats, instead of a worksheet or words on the board, to practice segmenting and blending.
Provide tiered activities. You can use word lists of varying levels to teach the same word sounds, as in these bingo games. For example, you could use single syllable or multisyllabic words to practice the/ee/ sound and spellings. Work with small groups on the word set that fits their needs. Provide additional instruction or scaffolding on the activities as needed.
Give choices. Providing a mix of activities, such as games (for solo play, pairs, or small groups), worksheets that use different skills, and cootie catchers in your literacy center lets students pick a way of practicing new skills and integrating new information that works best for them. Stock your class library with reading materials at a variety of levels. Work with students to pick just right books for them.
Offer options at the end of a unit. Quizzes are one way of assessing what students know, but there are many other ways too. You can use games for spot assessments or have students produce several products, such as writing a story, post card, or report, creating a game, a poster, or comic books, or giving an oral presentation, doing a skit, or taking part in a group discussion. You can even set standards for what students must demonstrate and allow them to create their own projects.
Differentiated instruction often happens in groups. That doesn’t mean you stick students in a leveled reading group at the beginning of the year and keep them there. You form flexible groups based on the understanding of certain skills or learning styles that help you match the right activity.
Providing a variety of instruction and practice doesn’t have to be difficult. My free scope and sequence help you target kids’ needs as you move through the sequence. Plus it offers a variety of options for each skill taught
Get your FREE phonics scope and sequence here to help you plan and differentiate your literacy instruction:
And then, join the Top Notch Literacy Club for printable materials including games, posters, worksheets, cootie catchers, and other activities, and more that make it easy to provide differentiated instruction without making kids feel singled out or different.
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