Planning Differentiated Instruction

1. Planning Differentiated Instruction Michael C. McKenna University of Virginia Sharon Walpole University of Delaware

2. Choose your clock partners! 12 9 3 6

3. Stage models of reading When children are acquiring literacy – developing the skills necessary for reading comprehension – they tend to move through stages in which their focus is very different. All along, during each stage, they are developing oral language skills.

4. Work with your 12:00 clock partner. 12 9 3 6

5. Start thinking . . . • If you were trapped on a desert island until you could come up with an ideal reading program for your school, what would it include? • To what extent does your current program include these things? • If there are missing elements, why don’t you think the designers included them?

6. Overview • Define differentiation • Propose instructional diets and groupings • Introduce a planning process

7. “At its most basic level, differentiation consists of the efforts of teachers to respond to variance among learners in the classroom. Whenever a teacher reaches out to an individual or small group to vary his or her teaching in order to create the best learning experience possible, that teacher is differentiating instruction.” Carol Ann Tomlinson, Differentiation of Instruction in the Elementary Grades. ERIC Digest. http://www.ericdigests.org/2001-2/elementary.html

9. Defining Differentiation (adapted from Tomlinson)

10. Let’s think it through • You’ve read aloud a piece of children’s literature to develop vocabulary and comprehension. • How could you differentiate for students on or above grade level, just below grade level, and well below grade level? • Would you choose to differentiate content, process, product, and/or learning environment? Why?

11. Let’s think it through • Make it more complex. You have a class of 20 students and a well-designed core reading program. Your goal is to develop at least grade-level competence in decoding, fluency, and comprehension. • How could you differentiate for students on or above grade level, just below grade level, and well below grade level? • Would you choose to differentiate content, process, product, and/or learning environment? Why?

12. Researchers have long tried to focus differentiation for reading “Balanced reading” was a critical concept in literacy history. It curricularized differentiation as one part of reading instruction. Teachers read aloud from children’s literature, engaged in shared reading from big books and posters, formed flexible groups for guided reading of little books and leveled books, and finally provided time for independent reading from a wide range of materials.

13. Guided reading … “takes advantage of social support and allows the teacher to operate efficiently, to work with the tension between ease and challenge that is necessary to support readers’ moving forward in their learning.” (p. 6) Fountas, I. C., & Pinnell, G. S. (1996). Guided reading: Good first teaching for all children. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

15. Defining Differentiation(Fountas and Pinnell)

16. Let’s think it through • You have first graders, 12 of whom have been identified as at-risk in the area of decoding by your screening assessment. • How would a guided reading format support their development? • What would you gain by planning guided reading for all of them? • What would you lose by planning guided reading for all of them?

17. Approaches to Differentiation • By instructional level • By fluency level • By assessed needs

18. This text was dedicated specifically to coaches and teachers in Reading First schools. It is derived from challenges and lessons in implementing Reading First.

19. Differentiation is “instruction that helps [children] accomplish challenging tasks that are just out of their reach” “instruction that targets a particular group of children’s needs directly and temporarily” “instruction that applies a developmental model” Walpole, S., & McKenna, M. C. (2007). Differentiated reading instruction: Strategies for the primary grades. New York: Guilford Press.

20. Stage models of reading When children are acquiring literacy – developing the skills necessary for reading comprehension – they tend to move through stages in which their focus is very different. All along, during each stage, they are developing oral language skills.

21. Work with your 3:00 clock partner. 12 9 3 6

22. Take Five Think about your most successful grade level. How are you managing whole-group, small-group, and intervention instruction? Discuss your progress with a partner.

23. Think about last year’s instruction. • How well did your strongest students do? • How well did your middle group do? • How well did your struggling students do?

24. It may be hard to accept, but the results you’re getting are the results you’re supposed to be getting. In other words, whatever you are doing right now is bringing you the results you are getting right now . . . Change what you are doing and you can change your results. Pretty simple really. Vitale, J. (2006). Life's missing instruction manual : The guidebook you should have been given at birth. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.

25. I define insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results. – Einstein

26. Our school visits in Virginia and other states indicate that differentiated instruction is not yet fully realized.

27. Setting the stage for differentiation requires careful analysis of the core.

28. Decide what to teach when. We are more likely to achieve improvements in vocabulary and comprehension for K and 1st grade during whole-group read-alouds, using both core selections and children’s literature. We can introduce and practice phonemic awareness and phonics concepts during whole group, but we’re more likely to achieve mastery during small-group time.

29. Decide what to teach when. We are more likely to achieve improvements in fluency and comprehension in 2nd and 3rd grade if we introduce them in whole-group and practice in small-group time. We can introduce word recognition concepts during whole-group time, but we will likely achieve mastery only during small-group time. What do we have to do to accomplish this?

30. Make more time for small groups. • Reading coaches and grade-level teams must determine exactly how to use the core program • Sort core instructional components from extension and enrichment activities • Moderate and control instructional pacing so that early introductions and reviews are fast What do we have to do to accomplish this?

31. Make a very simple stations rotation. • Look for materials already in the core. • Consider daily paired readings and rereadings. • Consider a daily activity linked directly to your read-aloud. Your children can write in response to that text every day. • Make your stations coherent! They are not babysitting stations but tools to reinforce and extend what you teach. • Consider a daily activity linked directly to your small-group instruction. Your children can practice the things you’ve introduced. What do we have to do to accomplish this?

32. Considerations for K stations • Strategic and intensive children are struggling with letter naming • Computer station? • Letters for distributed practice at home? • Some of the children are not on firm footing with phonological awareness • Picture sorts • Pictures to say and spell

33. Considerations for 1st-grade stations • Fluency: • Paired rereading of old stories • Paired reading of additional texts (benchmark) • Phonics: • Picture sorts, word sorts • Spelling for sounds • Vocabulary/Comprehension: • Listening station

34. Considerations for 2nd-grade stations • Fluency: • Assisted fluency work for intensive • Paired rereading of old stories for strategic • Paired reading of additional texts for benchmark • Phonics: • First-grade materials? • Intervention materials? • Practice with core vocabulary • Vocabulary/Comprehension: • Listening station with retelling sheet (intensive) • Leveled books and expository texts with retelling sheets (strategic and benchmark)

35. Considerations for 3rd-grade stations • Fluency: • Assisted fluency work for intensive • Paired rereading of old stories for strategic • Paired reading of additional texts for benchmark • Phonics: • First-grade materials? • Intervention materials? • Practice with core vocabulary • Vocabulary/Comprehension: • Listening station with retelling sheet (intensive) • Leveled books and expository texts with retelling sheets (strategic and benchmark)

36. Now you have set the stage for differentiated reading instruction. It’s time to plan. • Gather your resources. • Consider your children’s needs. • Try it out.

37. A Basic Template

38. A Basic Template

39. A three-week cycle for differentiated instruction Phonemic Awareness and Word Recognition Word Recognition and Fluency Fluency and Comprehension Vocabulary and Comprehension

40. Differentiating Instruction for Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, and Word Recognition

41. Questions • Who needs this type of instruction? • What data must be gathered? • What planning decisions must be made? • What are some tricks of the trade?

42. We are combining ideas from Chapters 3 and 4

43. What are we trying to teach? • These children still need to work on learning letter names and sounds, and they are not yet able to segment phonemes automatically. • They will work on coordinated activities to manipulate phonemes, learn new letters and sounds, and review letters previously taught. • They will work with letters and words during small-group time.

44. How will we know when we’ve accomplished our goal? • When children are able to segment and blend sounds easily, we should change our focus to word recognition and fluency. In that group, we will continue to work with word recognition, but we will be using phonics-controlled text for practice. • Remember that our goal is to make each of our groupings temporary and targeted.

45. A Stairway to Proficiency Vocabulary & Comprehension Fluency and Comprehension Word Recognition and Fluency PA and Word Recognition

46. Who is likely to need this type of differentiated instruction?

47. Letter naming and phonological awareness data suggest problems • We KNOW: These children are not on track for achieving the spring first-grade fluency goals • We NEED to know: Which letter names they need and whether they have been taught

48. Let’s find out • Give a letter-name inventory (in random order) to see which letters they need. • Use your phonics scope and sequence to see whether they’ve had an opportunity to learn those letters yet! • (For early emergent readers, find out whether they can sing, say, and finger-point the alphabet with an alphabet strip.)

49. Ability to segment words into phonemes is weak • We KNOW: These children are not on track for achieving the spring-first grade fluency goals. • We can FIGURE OUT: Whether they can segment to onset-rime or phoneme-by-phoneme.

50. Let’s find out • For children with extremely low scores, use an informal phonological awareness screening to see whether they can respond to syllables or onsets and rimes.