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.