1.5 Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities
AITSL Standard 1.5 Example 1
I develop teaching activities that incorporate differentiated strategies to meet the specific learning needs of students cross the full range of abilities. Below is an example of how I differentiated to meet the needs of all learners in a math lesson. I first assessed the students to determine what numbers the students were able to recognise, some students could not recognise numbers 1-5, others could recognise numbers 1-10 and some students could recognise number 1-10 and some numbers 10-15. I grouped the children according to ability level, see checklist in Figure 1 below, and provided them with a number of teacher/EA lead games and activities to practice number recognition according to their ability level.
Examples of games and activities included:
-
memory card games
-
matching the echidna number to his spikes
-
Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) counting objects with numbers
-
ability level games
-
using number cards to practice numbers during mat sessions.
The checklist in Figure 3 below shows the progress the children made which I will use to regroup children and provide for further differentiated teaching experiences.
Figure 1 - Checklist showing initial grouping of students according to ability level
Figure 2 - Example of IWB counting activity
Figure 3 - Checklist showing grouping of students according to ability level following activities
EYLF Outcomes: 2, 4 & 5
NQS Quality Area: 1, 3 & 5
Domains: Language, Personal, Social & Cognitive
AITSL Standard 1.5 Example 2
I differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities. Below, see Figure 4, is an example of a Cracking the Code lesson plan in which the learning objective was to detect rhyming words. The students played the game Save the Bug! in which they had to listen to three words and decide which two rhyme, they could then save a bug from the spider's web.
I differentiated to include all learners and support student participation:
Low Ability Students:
-
repeat the words, emphasising the rime
-
segment the words into onset and rime E.g. c-at, m-at and d-og
-
model the correct answer E.g. cat and hat both have ‘at’ at the end so they do rhyme.
EAL/D Students:
-
let the other students go first so that they can learn from their peers
-
allow for extra think time
-
allow for extra work time.
High Ability Students:
-
ask the student to generate a rhyming word for one of the pictures.
Figure 4 - Cracking the Code lesson plan
EYLF Outcomes: 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5
NQS Quality Area: 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5
Domains: Language, Personal, Social, Emotional, Cognitive & Physical
AITSL Standard 1.5 Example 2
I establish and implement inclusive and positive interactions to engage and support all students in classroom activities. I use differentiated teaching according to the intellectual development of my students to target the different areas of student learning requiring improvement. Below is an example of how I introduced the students to the letter of the day, the letter 'h'.
I first used the Jolly Phonics card with the song and actions, see Figure 5, then introduced CVC words beginning with 'h', with pictures of each of the words, see Figure 6.
Figure 5 - Jolly Phonics h sound song and actions
Figure 6 - CVC words
The students then made a circle on the carpet, I placed 2 hula hoops in the middle, one with the letter 'h', a thumbs up and a green tick and the other hula hoop with a thumbs down and a red cross. The students were given pictures, some beginning with the letter 'h' and others not. We went around the circle, each student said what their picture was and all of the students had to decide if the word began with the sound 'h' or not. The students put their thumbs up if they thought it did and their thumbs down if they thought it didn't. The student then placed their picture in the correct hula hoop, see Figure 7.
Figure 7 - Picture cards
We then looked at word level work. I gave each student word cards, some with ‘h’ words and some without. I placed a ‘h’, a thumbs up and a green tick in one column and a thumbs down and red cross in the other column. The students decided which column their word belonged in and placed their word in the correct section. As a class we went through each of the words, see Figure 8.
Figure 8 - Word based work
I then read the students a book on 'h' sounds. This lesson catered for all learning abilities. Students who could blend CVC words, student who could identify first sounds, and students were up to word based work. The lesson also catered for EAL/D students by using visuals (picture cards and picture book), the thumbs up and down, green tick and red cross and the students using their thumbs up or down to identify 'h' words. This lesson ensured that learners at different starting points could receive the instruction they need to grow and succeed.
EYLF Outcomes: 1, 2, 4 & 5
NQS Quality Area: 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5
Domains: Language, Personal, Social, Cognitive & Physical