Ideas for meeting the needs of all learners through differentiated instruction. Here are 13 ideas for differentiated reading instruction in elementary...
We all know that every child's journey to become a reader is different. What is simple for one may be incredibly difficult for another, some are great with phonics instruction, others seem to sail right through sight words, and others yet can read the words, but have a hard time with understanding what they're reading. How on earth are you supposed to teach a room full of children who are all unique and at different points on their reading journey? You differentiate. You may have 3-4 reading groups, you may have 6-7 reading groups (yes, I did that), you may pull students for 1-1 instruction, or small group instruction with a group that needs to work on a particular concept. Today I thought I'd show you some simple ways to use a single reading resource many ways, that is, to differentiate. I'm going to focus today on emergent readers. UNC defines an emergent reader as: "Child on the path to fluent literacy, before conventional reading and writing skills emerge. Emergent readers demonstrate alphabet knowledge, a concept of what a word is, a sense of story (beginning, middle, end), listening and retelling skills, phonemic awareness, and verbal expression." Here's an example of some text you might use with an emergent reader. It has a limited number of words, uses mostly sight words, and has pictures that clearly match the sentences. You'll notice the text has a repeating pattern, in this case, "I see a red __" The book I took this from has 6 sentences with this pattern, one to a page, plus a final page without the last word on it, for the children to add in their own word and picture. Once children are familiar with the text pattern from the book, you can have them match the sentences and pictures. Start with just a couple, and work your way up. You can also separate the words in a sentence and have students pay close attention to each word in order to put the words in the correct order. This is a great time to point out that sentences start with capital letters (so the word "This" must be first) and end with punctuation (so the word yellow must be last). Children will look at the first letter in each word to help them decode the word, and need to think about what makes sense. They may notice that the first word in each sentence is the same, or point out the pattern the sentences are based on. If they struggle with one of these words, you might want to point out other instances of the word - preferably in a sentence they've already read. I find that children are much more likely to engage with the text if they have the opportunity to "play" with it, so I make word and picture cards large enough for students to manipulate easily. I usually use mine in a pocket chart. Just think of the fun children can have putting the words in the wrong order to create crazy "sentences" - and the reading and thinking about the words necessary to do so! If you are working on skills like this with more than one child, challenge them to work together to make the sentences, or to scramble them up for each other. My students LOVED taking turns scrambling and decoding sentences. You can even have them dictate and illustrate additional sentences that fit the pattern, and let them scramble and decode those! As students gain skills and confidence, you can challenge them with more text at once... ... including multiple scrambled sentences. Here I've combined both of these techniques: several sentences need to be unscrambled, and then the matching picture can be found and placed with each one. Notice that these are still predictable sentences that follow a pattern, and that the pictures still correlate closely to the text. By varying the number of sentences children are working with, whether the words are in order or scrambled, and whether the pictures are with the sentence or scrambled separately, you can manage the difficulty level for different children - or the same child, on different days. This is the most challenging level I've come up with for this kind of text. I've scrambled both the pictures and the words for multiple sentences, and have provided the text in book form for students to refer to as they put everything in order. Look how much more challenging this is than the other ways of differentiating listed above! By the time students can work with the text at this level, they've most likely mastered the sight words used in the text, and will be able to identify those words in other places. (In other words, they're really reading!) When working with children like this, it's important to look at what they CAN do, and to build on the skills already in place. A child who already knows the sight words in a text probably doesn't need to match pictures to sentences, just as a child who is working to put a single sentence in order will only be frustrated if you scramble several at once. You want them to enjoy the experience of working with words, as well as to learn new things! These techniques will work with almost any emergent reader text, but if you are interested in the texts I've used in this post, they are all part of this resource, including the word and picture cards for children to manipulate: I'd love to hear how you differentiate for your emergent readers - share your tips in the comment section below!
When trying to differentiate instruction for our students, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. Here are 6 Easy Ways to Differentiate Instruction
Educational Technology has released an infographic that is based on a classic title How to Read a Book written by Mortimer J. Adler. See also: [ef-archive number=2 tag=”lists” ] The boo…
Originally designed with seventh grade students, Reciprocal Teaching is a research-based strategy that teaches students to work in small groups to coordinate the use of four comprehension strategies: prediction, clarification, summarization, and student-generated questions. This article illustrates how to implement Reciprocal Teaching for the Primary Grades (RTPG). Modifications include: additional strategies, cue cards with pictures and scripts, group work interspersed with whole class follow-up, and an independent written component for individual student accountability.
Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
Love podcasts? Check out this post in the form of a podcast episode on The Classroom Commute Podcast :
Here is a collection of eight class discussion techniques to structure classroom discussion and ensure all students' equal participation.
What reading strategies do students need to know? Find out here and keep track with a free chart!
Teaching reading comprehension is such a challenge! Learn how I revamped my reading instruction (and my reading block) to inspire HUGE change in my readers!
Guided reading is an excellent instructional tool, but guided reading for ELLs is equally as effective--and maybe even more important!
Looking for fluency activities? I just updated my fluency freebie. I added some short passages. If you need longer passages, I recommend visiting Reading A to Z. This is a great site with leveled passages. There are even some free books that you can download. Click HERE to get your freebie.
Executed well, student-centered instructional methods can disarm some of the more intimidating parts of academia.
Improve students' reading, writing, vocabulary, and spelling with this huge collection of Greek and Latin roots word wall cards. This set of over 250 word wall cards has everything you need to create a color-coded, organized display aligned to your curriculum. Over 250 common Greek and Latin roots, suffixes, and prefixes are covered. These word wall cards can be printed, laminated, cut, and used for years and years. Buy once, use forever! The study of Greek and Latin roots takes the mystery out of word-meanings by teaching students the building blocks for over 70% of the words in the English language. If your students know the meaning of about 250 roots, they can figure out the meaning of thousands of English words. WHAT'S INCLUDED Two printing options: 2 Cards Per Page 3 Cards Per Page DETAILS To add context and help you stay organized, the cards are color-coded. Green - Prefix Blue - Numeric Prefix Black - Root Word Red - Suffix To save paper and ink, roots with the same meaning share a card. For example, "-astro-" and "-stell-" share a card because they both mean "star." To see every prefix, root, and suffix covered, see below. PREFIXES a- a- ab- abs- ambi- amphi- ante- anti- aristo- astro- audio- auto- bene- biblio- bio- circum- co- col- com- con- contra- cosmo- de- dia- dis- dys- en- endo- epi- ethno- eu- ex- exo- extra- fore- helio- hemi- hyper- igneo- il- im- im- in- in- inter- intra- ir- iso- mal- mega- meta- micro- min- mis- multi- neo- non- nov- omni- opt- over- pan- photo- poly- pre- proto- pyro- re- retro- semi- sol- sub- super- sy- syl- sym- syn- tele- theo- therm- trans- un- under- zo- NUMERIC PREFIXES mono- uni- bi- du- tri- tetra- quad- penta- quin- hex- hept- sept- oct- ennea- non- dec- cent- kilo- mill- ROOTS am amat ambul anim ann aqu aster cand carn cede ceed cess chroma chron cred cycl dem derm dict dorm duc duct dur dyn ego enn equ fact fec fer fic fict fid flect flex form fract frag gen geo globus gon gram graph hydr hypno ject jud jur jus leg lith log lumen mania mech medi ment meso meter metr migr miss mit morph mort naut nav necro orb pac path ped ped petr phil phile phobia phone phyll phys plac pod poli port psych quer ques quir quis rupt scope scrib script sens sent soci sol soph spect spher spir stella struct tain tempo ten tent terra tin tract urb vac van vid vis volut volv SUFFIXES -able -al -cracy -crat -ed -en -ence -er -est -ful -fy -hood -ial -ian -ible -ic -ied -ies -ing -ion -ish -ism -ist -ition -ation -ive -ize -less -logist -logy -ly -ment -ness -or -er -ous -s -es -ship -tion -ward -y
Use the powerful strategy of reciprocal teaching and Google's new Rivet reading app to empower struggling students and engage them in reading.
Are you new to social studies interactive notebooks or lapbooks? Read about how I design my lapbooks and how this method of delivering instruction will have your students more engaged and organized with the content. Inquiry-based design helps move students through 3 supporting questions and toward a final culminating written response. Learn about the different sections as well as tips and tricks to using lapbooks. My elementary students love using interactive notebooks and yours will too!
Here you can find not just a logic game but also I tried to explain step by step how the ss can solve this kind of game. Ellakass asked me to prepare this because there are ss who don´t know how to start it or what to do. Hope you all find it useful. This game was created using Word 2003. The clues are very simple. The pics are from fumira.jp. Enjoy it with your ss and please let me know whether it helps them. Hugs, Zsuzsapszi - ESL worksheets
Classroom Freebies Too is more freebies for more teachers!
Cultivate lifelong reading skills.
Effective spelling instruction emphasizes the structure of the English language. Effective spelling instruction can lead to reading success as well.
