ABSTRACT
2It’s mid-September and Mrs. Jones has recently finished collecting her baseline assessments. She has compiled a literacy assessment folder for each of her 22 students, which includes a formal spelling inventory, several writing samples, benchmark running records, and comprehension measures. After analyzing the results, Mrs. Jones noted that two of her second-graders are just beginning to read at the emergent level (see Exhibit 1.2); one of these students is an English learner. Five students are reading just below the beginning second-grade level with strong comprehension, and six students are reading fluently at the beginning second-grade level with weak comprehension. Another six of Mrs. Jones’s students are reading fluently and accurately at a mid-second-grade level with strong comprehension, while three of her students are reading and comprehending text at the fourth-grade level or beyond. This is not unusual; in her nine years of teaching second grade, Mrs. Jones has noticed a similar range in her students as each school year begins. Mrs. Jones recognizes that the instruction in her classroom will have to be differentiated to support the strengths and meet the needs of her learners. But what exactly does differentiate mean? What components of reading can, and should, Mrs. Jones differentiate? Where does she start with such a complex task?
