Differentiation Strategies and Individual Plan of Learning - Case Study Example

Differentiation Strategies and Individual Plan Student’s Name Institution Affiliation Differentiation Strategies and Individual Plan In schools, teachers get different kinds of students such as Abdul, and they have to make them understand whatever they are teaching. According to Hattie (2003), over the years education systems have developed various measures that all focused towards ensuring that the students know what they are taught. Teachers have the task of identifying where the students do not understand so that they can concentrate on eliminating the difference. It is common to come across students such as Abdul with the different background that makes them unable to understand the English language. Just like Abdul’s teacher and educator would go with and individual reading program that boosts him learn English? The paper will deal with three areas which are Early Intervention, Word recognition, and building vocabulary strategies. While children are unable to understand some subjects such as English in class, teachers in collaboration with other stakeholders develop individual learning programs for these kids. Many studies in the past decades have tried to show where the child’s problem lies so that they can eliminate the difference of inability to understand like other kids. Some of the important techniques used in the past are the Hierarchical Linear Modelling which considers the variance from different influences such as the students brings the assignment, policy, curricula, teacher, school climate, principal, teaching strategies, and the home (NEPS - Balanced Approach, 2016). The educator needs to understand the various minor interaction effects otherwise they will have to deal with primary sources of variance in six-fold. As a result, the teacher needs to develop an Individual Learning Program for every kid. Consequently, the teacher should formulate an Individual Learning Plan (ILP) for every kid. Apparently, an ILP is a document that is formed by teachers with the help of other people and contributes to plan, deliver, and evaluate and education program developed by educators (Hattie, 2003). In short, the students have different needs of English learning and therefore needs different individual learning programs. Early Intervention The starting point is to believe that it is to help the young readers to find out more successfully than they were doing. Teachers and other educators should take advantage of the techniques that have been formulated over the years that guarantee balanced instruction strategies. Children like Abdul should be offered literacy support since they are under-achieving. As the international evidence shows, all children that are subjected to quality education in the early years, they achieve better grades in other age appropriate levels. NEPS - Balanced Approach (2016) discussed that balanced approach and support levels bring about a sacksful student in future. Some of the techniques used in helping the disadvantaged children who are read to students, daily writing, reading together and daily independent writing. Application of the strategies boosts the quality of teaching which leads of bringing out above average students especially those from the disadvantaged communities and others such as Abdul who English is not their first language. In short, it is the strategies that the teachers undertake that can help children such as Abdul to improve on their weak points. Most students who have English as a second language have difficulty in learning. According to NEPS - Balanced Approach (2016), these are the next major challenge of learning from dyslexia. A significant number of the adults and children with poor levels of literacy were born and raised in countries where they speak and get all the instructions in their mother tongue. Evidently, despite Abdul and his parents migrating to Australia, the family still speaks in the Arabic language at home which makes it difficult for him to understand English. English is an entirely foreign language to Abdul, and that is why he cannot completely capture education in Australia. As a result, the teachers have to come up with a complete procedure of literacy development through the evidence-based practice. Such method is achieved through approaches and researches that have been used teach literacy and were rigorously tested in the real world situations. In particular, there is a lot of evidence out there that support the following practical measures of boosting primary language curriculum in therapy years. First of all, it is the role of the teacher to create a classroom culture that motivates the children like Abdul to learn. The teacher can achieve this by encouraging children to read for authentic meaning such as pleasure, for a task, or just to be informed. Consequently, the teacher should provide children with scaffolded instruction to help create awareness in phonetics, vocabulary, phonics, fluency, and comprehension that lead to independent learning. On other ways, the teacher should give the students a chance to select the materials that they want to learn about in class (Rasinski & Padak, 2004). In short, it is more productive when the teacher offers a broad range of genres for children to have quality literature. Also, a teacher can use multiple texts to enhance the prior knowledge, expand the jocularly, and link concepts. Most importantly, the teacher should build a whole-class context that brings out collaboration and community work within the class framework. There should be balanced teacher-child led discussions of the English language texts. Moreover, the educators should choose the technologies that seem to expand and link the English concepts and help the children to learn. Finally, the teacher should give appropriate, varied instructional assessments that can help monitor the progress. In short, a teacher must come up with an ILP that they indeed follow to ensure that they help the kids to learn. While the teacher must place an evidence-based practice, it is important they also apply professional wisdom when dealing with kids such as Abdul. NEPS - Balanced Approach (2016) noted that as much as any evidence-based methodology seems to be effective through research, learning or optimal literacy, and the teacher must also be knowledgeable, dedicated and skillful. The qualities are the only ones that will enable a teacher to come up with professional judgment while making the instructional decisions, and therefore enable the kids to achieve their full potential. As a result, introducing any balanced approach teaching to children requires combinations of many experiences and activities that guarantee child motivation towards learning. In short, the teacher needs to combine the skill-based and education of the whole language to motivate a child to such as Abdul to learn English. The most productive balanced approach for the primary language curriculum utilizes three main strands which are the reading, writing, and oral language. In this strands, the teacher can read, or read together with the kids, allow Abdul to read independently, and write. Broadly, language and mostly English is the core of any child’s learning; when a child has an ability to read and write, then they can understand the other subjects with fewer difficulties (Sibold, 2011). The necessary language skills to be acquired are listening, speaking, writing and reading which form a reciprocal relationship. For Abdul to understand and be a better student in future, he requires healthy roots that should be present at the beginning of his education and continue to develop as Abdul grows and education become complicated. Mostly, Abdul needs books, reading at school and home, oral language experiences, and most of all motivation from the teachers, friends, and parents. The three strong areas required to gain skilled reading are words recognition, written communication, and essential reading (Rasinski & Padak, 2004). Abdul can recognize words through awareness of phonological, phonics, sight words and even word reading strategies. On written communication, the teacher has the mandate to help Abdul with the handwriting, spelling, and meaningful writing. Read To Students The reading is an interactive process where the teacher or the parent does not only read a book to the students but involve them in the process through various ways such as asking them about the words that they heard. Such an activity makes the children motivated, and this would also make Abdul get excited to read for himself. Read Together In this case, the teacher should use big books that enable both him and Abdul to learn together. Additionally, Abdul should take the time to read together with his friends so that he can connect with the spoken and written words in the text. Daily Independent Reading The teacher should allocate daily reading content to Abdul and request him to explain or repeat whatever he learn from the books. For instance, if the teacher wants him to read about fifty words that start with /b/ sounds. Once read the teacher should ask him to present as many as he can be able to in the class. Daily Writing Another effective method is to encourage children to write about something every day in different genres. For instance, the teacher can request Abdul to write about his pet. Apparently, Abdul will be excited to do so and will be eager to take the work to the teacher. At this point, he teacher can ask him to read in class so that he can gain the confidence of his English knowledge. Word Recognition Strategies Before a child can understand they need to know the relationship between the symbols or else which symbols are combined to form sounds that they represent. Phala (2013) stated that a child has taken real strides towards learning when they can decode or sound out the words since that is the only way they can be recognized and map a word when reading or listening. When the teachers and parents help the children to do a lot of exercises, they are eventually able to know many words as possible automatically. The more the words the words a child can identify with the better their reading skills. However, there are those strange words that will be difficult for the children to sound out thus requiring the sounding out of such names. Additionally, it was difficult to understand the relationship between the sound and symbol since in English some sounds are presented by more than one symbol. For instance, the /f/ sound is representing differently in distinct words such as f in fat, gh in the laugh, and ph in the phone. Another sound that can be confusing is the e sound because it has different representations, for instance, e in me, ei in receive, ee in the bee, ea in leaf, ie in believe, and sometimes it is a silent e-constant is some words such as Pete. Alternatively, there are also those letters that represent different sounds in distinct terms such as ea in steak, bead, and dead. Thus, such learning differences make it tough for children such as Abdul who already have struggled with the new language. Nevertheless, 84% of the English words have consistent and regular spelling patterns while only 3% have irregular (Sibold, 2011). Some strategies are used to make children like Abdul familiar with English words to help them decode, understand, and pronounce words. First, it is necessary to ensure that they can attack a word piece by piece through guidance. As a teacher ensure the children are involved by engaging then during pronunciation and checking whether or not they can differentiate the pronunciation differences (Sibold, 2011). Give them time to try out but if that child cannot identify that word or it takes long for them help the child to recognize the word and the sound/symbol pronunciations. Weekly Word Bank This method involves collecting a list of words created by the teacher and the student about an academic content to facilitate the student learning. A word bank would enable Abdul to access the key English words that would help him in the instructional critical vocabulary development. Word Sorts The word sorts are the developmental activity that involves placing words in different categories depending on the pattern, sound, and meaning. O'Connor (2014) noted that the word sorts not only make the children start making sense about words but also enable a constructive learning and at the same time an instruction that is teacher directed. However, the teacher should always consider the child level of learning to avoid giving them hard word sorts that would not help them. Word Walls Word walls are the collection of words that are placed in large visible letters on the wall, board or any other display surface at home and in the classroom. The word walls help the students to learn about the words that they want to use while reading and writing. A word wall at home and school would help Abdul to learn as many English words as possible, thus boosting their knowledge. Reading and Games To enable children like Abdul to recognize English words all the stakeholders must create reading environments in school and at home to ensure that he is motivated to read. Abdul should be made to read one sentence more than once so that the teacher can see whether or not they understand and recognize the English words (O'Connor, 2014). The teacher should English words that he had already taught Abdul to examine whether or not he can use these words at a time. Building Vocabulary Strategies For all English language learners (ELL) it is crucial when it comes to the development of the vocabulary. Interestingly, the children whose first language is English join kindergarten with the knowledge of about 5,000 words. However, other mother tongues speakers and ELLs such Abdul do not have such number of words, and if lucky they only know a few numbers of English. As a result, it creates a huge gap between the children and a teacher has to find a way to bridge the gap between the ELLs and native English speakers. The ELLs have to struggle to build a foundation of the English language and at the same time catch up in class with the other children (Sibold, 2011). Therefore teachers need to use different strategies to foster the vocabulary levels of the ELLs. Concepts Map Concepts maps are simply graphic visual representations that contain arrangements of vocabulary words. Beck, McKeown, & Kucan (2013) noted that such ideas are valid when they have a direct instruction that tells Abdul what to do. Notably, the visual representations are appropriate for the ELLs, and therefore, the teacher should use concepts such as word trees, relational charts, among other images to help children link the definitions with the phrase. Additionally, the teachers can use flow charts to show different meanings of words. Word Stories and Classical Roots Before even teaching, the teacher should read stories to children, and pre-teaching vocabulary for the sake of the ELLs such an Abdul. Such stories give the kids a chance to remember the words and able to place them in whatever context whenever they remember the story (O'Connor, 2014). English is this case can be used as a second language complemented by gestures, pantomiming, objects pointing, and drawings, among others. For instance, the teacher or Abdul’s parents can use Arabic to explain to Abdul what a particular English name means so that they can create complete understanding. Words for the Day Young children such as Abdul are excited by the signal word in each day. According to Beck, McKeown, & Kucan (2013) a teacher should select such words and encourage Abdul to read them. The teacher should pronounce the word and ask Abdul to echo it. Such a name keeps the child alert. For instance, the teacher can use the same to investigate whether or not Abdul can identify it in a sentence. The repletion of the word throughout the day will enable Abdul to retain the new words. Games and Puzzles Use of games and puzzles are very powerful tools of expounding the English vocabulary amongst the ELLs students. A teacher can use games such as the scrabble to enable children to learn as many games as possible. Alternatively, the teacher can collaborate with Abdul to create interactive games that can encourage Abdul to learn as much vocabulary as possible (Phala, 2013). For instance, the bingo cards seem to boost the excitement of learning the new words. References A Balanced Approach to Literacy Development in the Early Years. (2016). NEPS - Balanced Approach to Literacy Development in the Early Years - 2015. Retrieved 9 April 2017, from http://www.education.ie/en/Schools-Colleges/Services/National-Educational-Psychological-Service-NEPS-/Balanced-Approach-to-Literacy-Development-in-the-Early-Years-.pdf Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. (2013). Bringing words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction. Guilford Press. Hattie, J. (2003). Teachers Make a Difference, What is the research evidence?. O'Connor, R. E. (2014). Teaching word recognition: Effective strategies for students with learning difficulties. Guilford Publications. Phala, T. A. L. (2013). Problems in word recognition for grade 4 learners in an inclusive classroom in Ekurhuleni South, Gauteng (Doctoral dissertation). Rasinski, T. V., & Padak, N. (2004). Effective reading strategies: Teaching children who find reading difficult. Prentice Hall. Sibold, C. (2011). Building English language learners' academic vocabulary: strategies & tips. Multicultural Education, 18(2), 24. Read More