Differentiation in the Classroom

What does it mean to differentiate in the classroom? Our classrooms are filled with students who have a wide spectrum of ability levels and learning styles. It is up to us to meet their individual needs. This means that you provide different levels of teaching and active engagement, as well as use a variety of teaching methods.

Teachers that differentiate reach out to students where they are at in order to take them where they need to go. Differentiated classrooms are rich learning environments filled with choices and opportunities. Differentiation doesn't have to be hard, but it should be thoughtful. Let's take a look at differentiating in different subject areas.

Reading

The first and most important thing a teacher needs to know is their student's reading level. Once you find out your students independent reading level, you can help them to self select appropriate books. This is the beginning step for differentiating in reading. Give your students "just right books", and help them to slowly move up the reading ladder. Recommended reading: Differentiating Reading Instruction by Laura Robb

As students read their individual books and respond in journals, meet with small, flexible guided reading groups. Bring students together based on their ability levels, skills, and strategies for a short lesson. Change groups around as needed. Try to meet with students in a one on one mini conference each week to check up on their personal reading. Recommended Reading: Guided Reading: Good First Teaching for All Children by Fountas and Pinnell

Introduce literature circles. Setting students up in book club groups not only gives them an opportunity to select a book, but it gives them a chance to socialize about books. This "book talking" is a powerful way to engage students in reading, and meets individual needs at the same time. Recommended Reading: Literature Circles by Harvey Daniels


Writing

Choice in writing, writing conferences, and guided writing are key to differentiating. Each student works on a piece of writing (even within a specified genre) that means something to them. Meeting with individuals to discuss their writing, and meeting with small flex groups based on need is differentiation at its best. Set up a writing workshop situation where you can spend most of your teaching time in one on one and small group situations. Recommended Reading: Writing Workshop: The Essential Guide by Ralph Fletcher

Math

Think "guided math". Just like guided reading, you work with small, flexible groups based on individual needs. Perhaps you have three students who struggle with beginning division. You pull those students together in a small group and work with them. What do the other students do while you are working with small groups? You can set up math exploratory centers, assign math practice, or create choice projects that allows students to apply math skills to real world situations.

Another way to differentiate in math is to compact the curriculum. Give students pretests before teaching a unit of math. Students who master the objectives are given a challenging project while you teach the rest of the class. Meet with your project students a few times a week, and give them the opportunity to share their project with the class at the end of the unit. Recommended Reading: Math Intervention: Building Number Power with Formative Assessments, Differentiation, and Games, Grades PreK-2 and Math Intervention: Building Number Power with Formative Assessments, Differentiation, and Games, Grades 3-5

Social Studies and Science

Differentiate social studies and science curriculum by giving students choice. Meet their needs by meeting their interests. Give students choices within a framework for researching, reading, writing, and completing projects. Are your students studying Colonial Times? Allow students to choose a specific topic within Colonial times to research. Give them a final project choice. Your choices should include audio, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic activities, as well as activities that include multiple intelligences. A variety of choices should be designed to meet a wide range of ability levels and learning styles.

Differentiating in the classroom not only meets your student's needs, but it also gives new life to your learning environment. Actively engage your students each and everyday by challenging them through their interests, learning styles, and ability level.

Using A Multi-Sensory Approach For Students Who are Experiencing Trouble In Learning Sight Words

Early in my career, while teaching 1st grade in a Baltimore City Public School, I ran into students who couldn't remember their sight words. If you taught the word 'house' on Monday and it seemed as if the all of student learned it, Tuesday would come and there would be a few children staring at 'house' as if it had never been presented. A term teachers used in the late sixties, to describe students like these, was 'word blind'. At that time, the 'Look and Say' method of learning vocabulary was 'in'. This method made the child rely on his or her sense of sight to remember the word.

Phonics took a back seat in most schools in the late 1960's and early 1970's. The rational was: if you taught the words, 'cat, hat and bat' by sight, and then, 'sun, see and so', the student would miraculously be able to read the word 'sat'. Could a child notice the '--at' in 'cat', the '_at' in 'hat' and the '--at' in 'bat' and then notice the 's' in 'sun', 'see' and 'so' and somehow put it together and get 'sat'? Not that this was taught, it was just supposed to happen. Did it? I guess it did for a small amount of children who were bright and good at seeing patterns. For the average, and below average reader, or for the child who didn't have visual learning as a strength, this 'Look and Say' method didn't work.

While at Johns Hopkins University, getting my masters, I met a professor who worked at Kennedy Krieger Institute, which is part of the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore City. He taught children who had severe learning problems. The teacher's name was Dr. Gutcuska. He was extremely against the teaching of sight vocabulary using the 'Look and Say' method. Dr. Gutcuska taught that 85% to 90% of the English words we teach are phonetic. He also realized students couldn't sound out every word they came to using phonics. Sounding out each word wouldn't do because that would make the reading of a text slow and laborious.

Dr Gutcuska introduced the idea of teaching sight vocabulary making use of three senses: visual, auditory and kinesthetic. He explained the three could be viewed as three points on a triangle. Try to imagine visual at the top, and auditory and kinesthetic at the bottom. The three are connected to each other by lines which form the triangle. So, one line connects 'visual' to 'auditory'. One connects 'auditory' to 'kinesthetic' and the last connects 'kinesthetic' to 'visual'. Suppose a teacher holds up a flash card and says, 'house'. She's used a visual cue (the flash card), and an auditory cue (saying 'house'). But if there is a breakdown in the line which connects visual to auditory, the brain may not get the signal. Why would there be a breakdown? There could be damage, that's present in that part of the brain, from an accident before, at, or after birth. It could be a developmental problem, like autism, which delays language. It could be the child has strengths in other areas. Hyperactivity could cause the child to not be able to focus on the word. It could be a number of things, but guessing what the problem is doesn't have to concern us as much as what you do to teach the sight words so that all the students can master them.

Teaching, using a multi-sensory approach, provides an answer. The theory is, if a weakness is present in the line linking auditory and visual, and the message isn't getting to the brain, send it in another way. The link between kinesthetic and sight may be stronger for this student. The child may not have a problem learning the vocabulary word, 'house' if he or she is given a crayoned flash card and encouraged to trace each letter of 'house', with the pointing finger, while saying the word (or spelling and saying the word) out loud. Now the child is seeing, feeling, and saying the word aloud. The message, this word is 'house', has a better chance of getting to the brain.

Other ways, beside tracing crayoned flashcards, are:
1. Writing the word in sand as the child spells and says the sight word.
2. Painting the word at the easel, illustrating it and telling someone what the word says.
3. Writing the word with Elmer's Glue and sprinkling sand on it. Then word can be traced as it is pronounced.
4. Making the word with pipe cleaners.
5. Using wooden or cardboard cutouts of the alphabet to build the word, then telling someone the letters that make up this word and pronouncing it.
6. Writing the word with Elmer's Glue and sticking tissue paper balls to the glue. After the glue is totally dry, the word can be felt while the student spells and says it.
7. Cheering the word, "h-o-u-s-e.....house, h-o-u-s-e.....house", while skywriting each letter in the air. Have students stand up for this activity so they can skywrite each letter big, thus providing a little whole body movement.

Of course as a classroom teacher, it would be difficult to do art projects for each word and for every child, but if you have an assistant in the room, or a parent who wants to help students who need reinforcement, these are activities they can use. Some of the activities lend themselves to learning stations to be used at independent practice time.The tracing of the green crayoned word, while spelling and saying the word, can be done with a class or group. Why green crayon? It's a color that's easy on the eyes and tracing crayon won't dirty the finger like some magic markers will.

I used manila or bogus drawing paper, cut to about 3" x 5". Each child will also need a piece of scrap paper and a pencil for this activity. If I were working on three sight words that day, I'd have the cards made in advance. Let's say the first word is, 'house'. On the chalkboard, place an illustration of a house next to a flashcard with the word on it (for the visual learners) and talk about the word. Use 'house' in an oral sentence or two (for the auditory learners). Write a few sentences for 'house' on the chalkboard and have students find and underline or circle the word.

Next, pass out the crayoned word to each child. Tape a large flash card to the board for yourself and demonstrate tracing each letter as you say the letter name. After spelling and tracing the word, sweep your finger over the word, from left to right, and say, "house". I did this several times. A student was invited to come up to the board to trace the word as it was spelled and then pronounced. After the student did this a few times, I'd take away the card and say, "Write 'house' for me". If they could, fine. If not, the child would repeat the tracing while spelling and saying the word again until the word could be removed and the child wrote it successfully. After this is done with one child on the board and the others watching, the class would try. The children did the tracing of 'house', as they spelled and said the word, until I said, "Hide the word 'house' in your desk and see if you can write it on your scrap paper". We would repeat this if need be. At the end of the lesson, the three sight words would be filed in the child's word box. At the beginning of the year, I asked children to bring in metal or plastic recipe boxes with alphabet dividers for this purpose.

Standing up and cheering the words while skywriting them is another activity which is easy to do with a whole class. It's a good way to review the words the day after presenting them. This activity gets the kids out of their seats and moving, which is good for the hyperactive students who need something other than sitting at a desk for pencil and paper activities.

I was surprised by the results. My first graders who weren't able to remember sight vocabulary before, were now able to do so. They were also able to spelI each word. Ten words a week (9 new and 1 review) worked for my situation. I liked teaching no more than three new words per day, reviewing on the fourth day and testing on the fifth. By the second semester, I sometimes went to 15 words a week (12 new and 3 review). At times, when I taught in a school which had no spelling series, I used these high frequency words as the spelling list for the week. The vocabulary words can come from a Dolch Word List or the reading series. What matters is making use of a multi-sensory approach in teaching reading vocabulary, even the senses of smell and taste. Think of teaching the word 'chocolate'. You could use all five senses!

By Fran Palazzolo, author