Differentiating for Success

Book excerpt: Creating differentiated instruction is an essential yet time-consuming component of effective teaching. Since students learn at different paces and in different ways, some students may be able to apply a targeted comprehension skill in cognitively complex ways immediately after being taught the skill while other students may need additional scaffolding in order to grasp it. All students, regardless of their skill level, benefit from activities that are at their just right level. This means activities are not too difficult or too easy. In this book, Nancy Witherell and Mary McMackin share easy-to-follow lesson plans that address key reading skills for students in grades 3 to 5. A set of three, tiered, differentiated follow-up activities accompanies each lesson. Fiction and nonfiction mentor text suggestions are included.