Differentiation of instruction with pre-kindergarten students

The school year has started, teachers and instructional assistants (IA) have conducted or are in the process of completing formal assessment tool(s) on each student enrolled.  From the data gathered, teachers and IAs will chart each student’s individual progress per domain skill levels (e.g., language, fine motor) and collectively as a class at large to determine how to plan culturally developmentally age appropriate practices/activities toward high quality education building upon school success.   This will reinforce using differentiation of instruction to need educational needs of students in the classroom.

Therefore, from the data collected, teachers and IAs determine methods of recording per domain skill level(s) the students who are below age level, at age level and above age level to start planning instructional activities.  Based on that data teachers and IAs can determine how to instruct skills with manipulation materials as one-on-one (individually), small group, and/or large group.  After activities have been completed, teachers and IAs will determine whether the evidence provided the student’s mastery to continue to work on, met, or move to next under continuum of the specific domain skill.  Some of the evidences recorded by teachers and IAs is through the using anecdotal notes, student’s work sample, video clips, checklists and so forth.

Based upon the typical three levels (stated above) students will fall under for particular domain skills the pre-k teachers must write on lesson plan under specific activities/areas level 1 (below – not met), level 2 (at age level) and level 3 (above) with specific notation of what students are to  work with.  These notation depict differentiation of instruction with the specific domain skill but showing three different means of accomplishment.  It should be noted, that teachers and IAs keep post it notes, tablets, I-pads, telephone and other ways to record data that will be embedded at a later time on the assessment tool that will show  student’s progression and next skill to work on in that domain area.  In addition, check out this article from Teaching Young Children “ Helping others understand academic rigor in teachers’ developmentally appropriate practices at http://www.naeyc.org/yc/article/academic-rigor-in-dap  or check out these YouTube clips titled, “What is differentiated instruction?”  at https://youtu.be/YAWKxpCv1Fw  or “Differentiated Instruction” at https://youtu.be/Fa82Icnzo9s .  Remember you will need to modify information for preschool age students.

Here is a mathematical example for number recognition correspondence from 1 – 10.

Level 1:  place dots on bears for students to put in numerical order as high as possible from 1 to 10.  NOTE:  you may first need to use bears with no dot for students to touch and count to highest number.

Level 2:  place numbers 1-10 on bears then have students put in sequential order from 1 to 10 or as high as possible.

Level 3:  let the student do one-to-one correspondence aligning dot bear to match numbered bear.  For more challenging activities students can put in order from highest numbered bear to lowest number.

Remember to record evidences of student’s progress on the domain skill continuum and continue to plan instructional activities accordingly to data for upcoming lesson plans.  Parental involvement is an important piece of the student’s support team.  Therefore, meet and discuss with parents the different activities they can engage in with their child working toward being at age level in different domain skills at home.  Continue to follow-up with parents on progression they’ve observed and provide updated activities to engage in as student progress.  Yes, parents are the keys to their child’s educational success.

As differentiation of instruction becomes more of the norm of the instructional activities teachers and IAs will discuss each student individually and class collectively as a whole how best to provide culturally developmentally age appropriate activities offering best practices during weekly planning.  Therefore, the activities and materials will be intentional building upon student’s different skill levels based on differentiation of instruction.