Week Five- Differentiation

In this week’s book report from “No More Independent Reading Without Support” by Miller and Moss, I have learned ways to accommodate and strengthen students’ reading skills through differentiated instruction, support, and assessment techniques that are beneficial not only for struggling readers but for good readers as well. I took notice when I read upon allowing students adequate time to discuss what they have read to others in class. I believe this is a great strategy for me with each of my students because it is a way for them to explain what they know and have understood verbally. It also gets my students to regurgitate what I have taught them in class. As students as discussing their chapter summaries, I reinforce important concepts that relate to what they have read. My students enjoy taking the initiative to read what they enjoy outside of class and connect it to what they are learning from the textbook inside of class. I like to have my students work in small groups to have shared reading responses, to conduct student-led discussions, and to complete a Four Corners activity, where they would post important concepts and ideas from the literary resources that I provide to them relating to the daily lesson that I have recently taught. “Peer discussion is one way that students can demonstrate their knowledge of their reading, which helps to make them accountable and improves comprehension (Miller and Moss, pg. 35, 2013). I also like to have my students keep a daily journal of free-writes of what they have learned during the week. I try to have at least two to three individual student conferences for striving readers as well as good readers so that I can progress monitor their reading skills, strategies, and comprehension levels.