5.11 Demonstrate differentiation of instruction for all students utilizing increasingly complex print and digital text.
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Differentiated Instruction Differentiated instruction is an essential part of any quality classroom. Even if all the students are the same chronological and developmental age, they are going to have different needs in the classroom. It is up to the educator to differentiate their instruction in order to meet the needs of each student. However, this does not mean planning out individualized lessons for each child but rather finding ways to appeal to each child's learning style. The use of technology can meet many of these students' needs and provide engaging and concept specific lessons.
At Treeline Elementary, students are given the STAR Reading test at the start of each school year. This determines their Accelerated Reader (AR) level as well as provides information to teachers on how to group students for instruction. The test is administered three more times throughout the school year near the start of each quarter. In addition to using the data in the aforementioned ways, in my classroom, we use the data to differentiate instruction on Compass Learning and Moby Max. If a child struggled with a certain skill on the STAR test (i.e. main idea), they would be given a series of targeted lessons based on this concept. Due to this personalization, not all students in the same group will be proceeding through the lessons at the same pace. This customizable approach makes the use of digital text a worthwhile part of our daily instruction. |