Chapter 9 – Differentiating Instruction
How can you make accommodations for students with special needs in basic skills instruction?
· Teaching Pre-skills
o Pre-skills – basic skills necessary for performing more complex skills
o Because textbooks do not generally list pre-skills, you need to ask yourself continually what pre-skills are required, and you need to be on the lookout for students who lack them
· Selecting and Sequencing Examples
o Help students make key discriminations between current and previous problem types by using examples that at first require the application of only one particular skill
· Deciding the Rate of Introduction of New Skills
o New skills should be introduced in small steps and at a rate slow enough to ensure mastery prior to the introduction of more new skills
o Prioritize skills
o Slowing down the rate of skills introduced is an accommodation in the way curriculum is presented, but it is not the same things as reducing the amount of curriculum to be learned
· Providing Direct Instruction and Opportunities for Practice and Review
o Some students may need more direct instruction and practice
o Practice is most effective when it follows direct instruction; practice is never an adequate substitute for direct instruction
o You need to differentiate instruction to enable students with special needs to acquire basic skills
How can you make accommodations for students with special needs when teaching subject-area content?
· Activating Background Knowledge
o The amount of background knowledge students have can greatly influence whether they can read subject matter with understanding
o Use the Prep Strategy
§ Preview the text or lesson, and choose two to three important concepts
§ Conduct a brainstorming session with students
§ Evaluate students responses to determine the depth of their prior knowledge of the topic
o Prepare Anticipation Guides
§ Consists of a series of statements, some of which may not be true, related to the material that students are about to read
o Provide Planning Think Sheets
§ Help writers focus on background information as well as on the audience and purpose of paper
§ Questions:
· What is my topic?
· Why do I want to write on this topic?
· What are two things I already that will make it easy to write this paper?
· Who will read my paper?
· Why will the reader be interested in this topic?
· Organizing Content
o Use Advance Organizers
§ Identifying major topics and activities
§ Presenting an outline of content
§ Providing background information
§ Stating concepts and ideas to be learned in the lesson
§ Motivating students to learn by showing the relevance of the activity
§ Stating the objectives or outcomes of the lesson
o Employ Cue Words for Organizational Patterns
§ Ways in which content area texts are written to reflect main ideas such as compare-contrast, cause-effect, and problem solution
o Construct Study Guides
§ Outlines, abstracts, or questions that emphasize important information in texts
§ Helpful in improving comprehension for students with special needs in content-area classrooms
§ Not a substitute for direct instruction
o Create Graphic Organizers
§ Visual format that helps students to organize their understanding of information being presented or read and the relationships between various parts of the information
· Teaching Terms and Concepts
o Model examples and use synonyms and definitions
o Make concept diagrams
How can you improve clarity in written and oral communication?
· Clarity in Written Communication
o The closer a pronoun is to its referent, the easier it is to translate
o There is a need for adopting structurally and organizationally coherent textbooks
· Clarity in Oral Communication
o Give directions
o Ask questions
o Present Subject Matter
What accommodations can you make for students to help them succeed in Independent Practice?
· Differentiating Seatwork Assignments
o Verbally present tasks
o Add practice examples that you can do with the whole class or small group of students who are having particular difficulty
o Write alternative sets of directions
o Highlight the important words in the directions
o Have students help each other when the directions are difficult
Outside Resources | |
Education 4 Kids | www.edu4kids.com |
ProQuest K-12 | www.proquestk12.com |
Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) | www.tesol.org |
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