Differentiation Ideas for the Classroom

A.. Opportunities to show understanding using different graphic organizers or pictures.

• With my first graders at many different academic reading and writing levels, and with the current push towards comprehension and fluency at an earlier age, I needed to give my students the opportunity to show their understandings in various ways. We teach new reading strategies every week (characters/setting, sequence, BME etc.). This week, I modeled how to find the characters/setting and BME of a story using a graphic organizer. I gave my students a chance to then respond to another story and choose their own graphic organizer to summarize the BME, characters and setting. Each "GO" has a similar layout, but with each one they could choose to write or draw the parts. They loved it and everyone was successful!
• One Option: https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1DGZ-2rFoAc20Y0OmaKGWwHVUF5JoG6pZtExQTAxD2p4/edit?usp=sharing

B. Using "student" experts to facilitate learning.

• Students who complete work earlier than others, can bring it to me and become an "expert" for a few minutes. They can walk around the classroom and help those who are finishing if they wish. 

C. Reading Buddies - This strategy is particularly useful for younger students and/or students with reading difficulties. Children get additional practice and experience reading away from the teacher as they develop fluency and comprehension. It is important that students read with a specific purpose in mind and then have an opportunity to discuss what was read. It is not necessary for reading buddies to always be at the same reading level. Students with varying word recognition, word analysis and comprehension skills can help each other be more successful.

• I've used this to work on fluency. One student gets to be the teacher, the other the student. The first reading is timed for 1 minute. The "teacher will follow along. Then the roles reverse. We time for one more minute.Student listen for punctuation, inflection and other read-aloud strategies.