Chapter 10 Differentiating Reading, Writing, and Spelling Instruction

One of a teacher's main goals is to establish strong literacy skills among their students. Reading, writing, and spelling are all important aspects of creating strong literate individuals. Helping yours students acquire these skills can be especially challenging in a diverse classroom. Differentiated instruction will be imperative in order for all students to succeed. Chapter 10 focuses on strategies for addressing these literacy skills in a variety of ways.

1. Read alouds should be a requirement for all elementary school teachers. They are a wonderful way to enhance reading, comprehension, and listening skills. Additionally, read alouds allow for students and teachers to quietly escape the structure of classroom learning for a short period of time.

http://www.soundsofenglish.org/Presentations/FCPSinservice07.pdf

This PDF provides some great ways of using read alouds to address linguistically diverse students. Not only does it provide a list of great books, but also contains comprehension strategies to go along with the selections.

2. Many teachers fail to make a big deal about the publication stage of writing for students. I believe this is a mistake because student's who get to see their work "published" gain a sense of accomplishment and have a desire to do more writing.

http://www.publishingstudents.com/

“Publication is important for all children. It is not the privilege of the classroom elite, the future literary scholars. Rather, it is an important mode of literary enfranchisement for each child in the classroom.”

—Don Graves

3. Spelling games are a great way to enhance your student's spelling abilities. Students love games and will be engaged thereby improving their spelling skills. Sparkle is a type of spelling game that is great for classes that have various spelling levels. This game is set up so that all students have a chance at winning not just those that are good spellers.

http://www.superteacherideas.com/spelling.html

This website has over 50 different classroom spelling games including 3 versions of sparkle. In addition to that, it has all types of games and strategies for every subject.



Chapter 9 Differentiating Large and Small Group Instruction

Teachers need to be aware of how they vary instruction depending on what type of instruction they are addressing. Large group and small group instruction cannot be approached identically. Additionally, small groupings should be varied depending on what content is being taught. Alternating groups can depend on students' academic skills and readiness, interest in and knowledge of content, learning strengths, challenges, styles, and preferences. Chapter 9 focuses on how a teacher should vary intsruction for different types of groupings as well as the size of the groupings.

1. Using novelty, curiosity, and movement to motivate your students enhances their learning abilities because they want to see the end result. This method can keep students engaged for longer periods thereby making your lesson more effective.

http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/solveproblem/strat-lackmotivation/lackmotivation-01.html

The website above has various ways of engaging students and keeping them interested in the content being taught. Included in the site are:

• Clearly articulate learning goals.
• Show relevance to students’ academic lives.
• Demonstrate relevance to students’ professional lives.
• Highlight real-world applications of knowledge and skills.
• Connect to students’ personal interests.
• Allow students some degree of choice.
• Show your own passion and enthusiasm.

2. Giving frequent and thorough feedback is essential in letting your students know that you value their work and are genuinely interested in seeing them succeed. If a teacher fails to do this, students often feel that what they work on is pointless and lose interest quickly.

http://www.netc.org/focus/strategies/prov.php

The website below offers proven reasons of why feedback is imperative for student success and ways of implementing and being consistant with feedback.

3. Jigsaw activities are a great way to teach a lot of material in a short period of time. Additionally, students are truly in charge of not only learning the content but being able to share it orally. This helps students work on their ability to articulate, listen, and comprehend new material.

http://www.jigsaw.org/

This website is amazing. It covers all aspects of how to implement a jigsaw effectively in your classroom. The opening statement on the website truly explains the benefits of using this type of activity in the classroom:
Welcome to the official web site of the
jigsaw classroom, a cooperative learning technique that reduces racial conflict among school children, promotes better learning, improves student motivation, and increases enjoyment of the learning experience. The jigsaw technique was first developed in the early 1970s by Elliot Aronson and his students at the University of Texas and the University of California. Since then, hundreds of schools have used the jigsaw classroom with great success.