Quilchena Inclusion Project

Teaching to the Diverse

Classroom
 Purpose
School perspective:
• teachers wanted resource support & EA
support, so question was how to
allocate scarce resources: what is fair &
equitable?
• school goal was differentiated instruction
• pro-d focus on differentiated instruction
 Purpose con’t
Classroom perspective:
• teachers wanted to address the wide range of
needs and number of students with learning
challenges
• all teachers asked to participate in collecting
data by administering DRA
• assessment data collated for each classroom
• one classroom chosen to pilot a literacy
program focused on one goal: Karen Maier,
grade 2/3, with Learning Resource Teacher
Megan Zeni and School Based Support
Teacher Ida Ollenberger
 Background Information
• many new teachers were asking for strategies to meet
the diverse needs in their classrooms
• experienced teachers were finding their familiar
methods of teaching to the class as a whole were not
working effectively
• outdated learning resources could not meet the needs
of a program of differentiated instruction (must
accommodate all reading levels)
• purchased Nelson Literacy Series and Guided &
Independent Reading kits
• new resources eliminated most teacher prep; old
materials added to teacher workload
 Process of resources selection
• secured release time for classroom teachers (in
groups K-2; 2-4; 5-7): principal covered classes for 2
hours
• resource teacher arranged publishers to visit school:
groups reviewed materials with resource teacher
• recommended one product K-7 for consistency:
Nelson series
• TL catalogued materials: pro-d day to become familiar
with materials (LSD teacher consultants facilitated)
 Learning Project Process
Know your learner: DRA (Developmental
Reading Assessment)
Created three ability groups
Created matrix of instructional sequence
Assigned teacher to each group
Six lessons conducted (2 lessons per week)
Completed re-assessment
Compared data
Conclusions
 Know your learner: DRA (Developmental
Reading Assessment)
• gives broad, comprehensive assessment of literacy
skills
• deconstructed the data into 8 core competencies &
created a literacy profile matrix - it shows each
student’s relative ability on those 8 competencies
rated in 4 categories: not yet meeting; minimally
meeting; fully meeting; exceeding (as per provincial
performance standards) - see matrix (next slide)
• based upon these data, chose one core competency
to focus on with an inclusive instructional program
• chose “accurate retell” as core competency
 Literacy Profile Matrix
• see attached document
“literacy profile”
 Created three ability groups
• in order to teach the same skill to students with wide range of
competencies (differentiated instruction), we needed to group the
students according to decoding and retelling skills based on DRA
assessment
• pre-assessment essential for success of differentiated instruction:
in planning both lessons and learning resources
• used literacy profile matrix: data used to inform the creation of
ability groups (along with teacher judgment)
• 3 groups created: low, medium, high (5 or 6 per group in primary)
• ESL & students with special needs in all 3 groups based on
literacy profile
• classroom teacher, resource teacher Megan Zeni, School Based
Support Team member each took one group for instructional
sequence
• option: classroom teacher could do this project independently, or
with TL, EA, principal or other arrangement: time frame would
vary depending on number of staff hours available
 Created matrix of instructional sequence
• select reading materials from Nelson series for each reading
group by ability: all ability levels are reading on same topic
• Nelson teacher’s guide has explicit instructions on how to teach
the chosen skill (retelling) in a series of lessons which build on
each other as you progress through the lessons
• chose 6 lessons
• created a matrix of instructional sequence which shows for each
lesson which book each group is using (see attached matrix):
this will save time - not planning every day
• 6 lessons were taught over a period of 3 weeks - able to do this
because 3 teachers were involved - would take longer with less
teacher time
• materials are so well laid out that a replacement teacher can
easily fill in and conduct the lesson with the group
 Conclusions
• significant improvements in retelling skills in all
three groups: in some students, an
improvement of two to three reading levels
• improvements were the result of direct,
focused instruction
• using appropriate, accessible materials meant
that all students achieved some measure of
success (including ESL students, learning
resource supported students)
• the assessment for learning piece was
extremely important in setting the teaching/
learning objectives.