More students are able to have success in the classroom when a teacher works to accommodate all students’ individual needs into each lesson.

One way that I work to meet individual needs in my classroom is through Guided Reading. The 21 students in my class are divided into four leveled reading groups: Panthers, Lions, Tigers, and Cheetahs. Guided Reading takes place during Language Arts stations, allowing me to work with one group at a time for 15-20 minutes on a daily basis. For Guided Reading lessons, I choose books based on each group’s reading level and create an individualized lesson plan for each reading group. In each lesson, I also include differentiated instruction for specific students in the groups. This allows all students to have success with the task at hand, while still providing a challenge for each student because the lesson plans are highly individualized. I have attached a sample Guided Reading lesson for all four groups that I created and implemented in March of 2008.

Guided Reading is a key example for meeting individual student needs because students in each group are able to read at their level and complete activities that are challenging (yet feasible) for them personally. The 21 students in my class fall into a wide range of achievement levels; some students read at a third grade level, while others are still below the first grade benchmark level for reading. With the individualized lesson plans, my students have been able to make progress at their own pace throughout the year. In addition, the small group setting allows me to work closer to all students in the class to keep up with their progress so that I may continue to move them forward in reading.

A non-example for this claim would be a whole group lesson setting where the neediest children require the most teacher attention. For example, during Writing lessons, the students who struggle to write independently will require the most assistance and attention from the teachers in the room. This ends up taking away instructional time from the other students in the class, and often prevents the higher-level writers from receiving much teacher support.

Because I spend time differentiating instruction for all of my students, more students are able to make improvements in their reading skills and comprehension without getting left behind or held back. This allows more students to be challenged and brought up to their potential, allowing students to progress at a faster rate.

While Language Arts lessons are automatically differentiated because the students are placed in leveled groups, many Math and Science lessons are taught as whole group lessons. This creates a challenge because I need to work to meet all students needs at the same time in one lesson. I have attached a Math and Science lesson plan where I include specific ways that I planned to differentiate instruction during the lesson.

Some common ways that I differentiate whole group instruction are pairing higher-level readers with lower-level readers for activities, asking probing questions in multiple ways during whole-group discussions, and circulating around the room to assist students as needed during activities. I also consider how certain students in the class might handle the lesson, and include specific instructions for those students when I think it will be necessary. Thinking this through ahead of time helps me to design a better lesson plan that accommodates more of the students' needs.

The two lesson plans that I have attached as evidence support my claim because they demonstrate the forethought that I put into my lessons to make them doable for all students. In both lessons, I grouped students strategically so that they were able to assist each other in their writing and group work. This allowed all of the students to successfully complete the tasks at hand, and I was able to circulate more easily to all groups without spending all of my time with the neediest students. I used differentiated instruction to anticipate the problems that students might have with the lesson, which helped them have success in the end.