Differentiated Instruction in Reading

We know that teaching is not 'one size fits all,' but not every teacher may have the knowledge or strategies to fully understand how we teach our students impacts their achievement. Every classroom, in every school around the world, is filled with students who learn differently from one another. It is our due diligence as educators to ensure all of our students have an equitable classroom that allows for all students to achieve success. 

No matter the circumstance, we know that 'One Size Fits All' is never the solution in education!

We know that understanding all of our students' needs is not as easy as this. It is up to us, as educators, to be informed about every student to provide the resources needed for every student.

Each student we teach learns differently and relies on their teacher to provide the proper tools in order to succeed and have equity within the classroom.

The video below is one of the best videos I've seen that uses Hollywood produced movies to show how teachers demonstrate inclusion and differentiated instruction. Below lists all of the ways the video shows how we can ensure our classroom is a welcoming place where students feel equity through the use of differentiated instruction so that all students can be successful.

1. Know your student:

• Survey your students to find out about their interests, especially in reading
• Ensure you are fully aware of all accommodations on every IEP in your classroom and utilize them
• Provide accommodations to students when you see that they are needed to ensure there is equity and allows for student success

2. Build Community:

• Empower student voice-let them know that what they have to say is important. Use community-building games and community circles to build community in your classroom.
• Build trust.
• Let students know that it is a safe space to express ideas.
• Allow students to challenge by choice

3. Assessment for Learning:

• Identify individual needs through conferencing and other forms of formative assessment
• Identify student strengths. Let them know and help them to develop these strengths
• Use Cloze Method

4. Differentiated Instruction:

• Content-Use familiar vocabulary
• Engage prior knowledge, but understand that prior knowledge varies based on life experiences of children
• Let students select content when possible
• Use familiar content formats and interesting themes
• Student Interest
• Relate content to student interests
• Demonstrate connections
• Apply prior knowledge of students' abilities
• Have different roles for different students
• Have roles that match interests
• Classroom Environment
• Set clear goals and expectations
• Adjust the physical space of the classroom to suit the needs of the students
• Teach to different learning styles and 'smarts' such as word smart, kinesthetic, visual, music, etc.
• Instructional Process
• Use games and technology
• Use a variety of tool that will help students plan and organize their thoughts such as graphic organizers, T-tables, speech-to-text and text-to-speech technology, anchor charts
• Slow release of responsibility-model, share, guided, independent learning
• 
• Express high expectations of students
• Student products should reflect the intended outcome (analyze text and research practices)
• Final products should be able to take on a variety of formats that will help the student to excel
• Continual Learning
• Every teacher should participate in ongoing-professional learning-course, workshops, reading pedagogical literature, etc.
• Learn from our students

Additional Resources:

Edutopia-Differentiated Instruction Resources

Student Success Differentiated Instruction Educator’s Package

Learning for All