What is literacy differentiation? Why would we do it?

It is quite amazing how much differentiated instruction has changed yet also stayed the same based on these three articles. From what I remember of literacy instruction from elementary school, my fourth and fifth grade teachers offered us some great opportunities to read and study independently. I remember doing literature circles, book clubs and presentations to the class in many different forms including art projects, acting out scenes from the book and straight presentations. Lorraine Goldman’s article reminded me of a program from fourth grade called Ringo or Reading Bingo

It was a bingo sheet filled with different genres of books pretty similar to the one seen above. Whenever we got a “bingo” we could pick a prize. For those competitive type-A students who love to read like me, it was a great challenge for me to see how many cards I could go through. Funny enough, I still have my Ringo trophy in the garage. Looking back on my fourth/fifth grade class now (our teacher looped with us) almost all of us went on to take almost exclusively Honors classes in high school and had a high amount of support at home. Our teacher was able to differentiate projects and assignments to our interests but we all had relatively the same level of high literacy ability.

I connected with Lorraine Goldman’s article because she was focused on giving her students opportunity and letting them take charge of their learning to some extent. While I understand this will be a different level of independence between secondary and elementary education, I think this is a great way for students to get excited about what they are learning. I also agreed with her overall philosophy about the attitude in her classroom: “The youngsters' re-sponse was an indication of the truth in what psychologists tell us about people-that they often conform to others' conception of them. My attitude toward the students was one of expecting intelligent, thoughtful, mature work, and usually most of them produced such work,”(Goldman, p. 238). I think a positive attitude may be one of the keys to keeping classroom harmony and is an important part of differentiated instruction.

While Goldman did not give a real definition of differentiated instruction, rather just showed how she used it in practice, Bett’s on the other hand provided a definition. I really agree with Bett’s definition, “differentiated instruction then places a premium on individual differences, gives every child an equal opportunity to learn, promotes personality development and social adjustment, and fosters the development of desirable attitudes by giving the child practice on when as well as how to use language skills,”(p. 713). I was surprised by the number of levels included in his article. While this information is from 1954 it sounds eerily similar to some things I have heard from current teaching practices that are occurring mostly because of No Child Left Behind. It’s legislature like this that somewhat unknowingly discourages differentiated instruction so that teachers. How can we as teachers compensate for the “teach to the test” lessons that may be mandatory parts of school curriculum?

The article by Harry Baker was disturbing at its worst but also had some points that are somewhat relevant today. Some things I noticed that are not appropriate for modern day educational philosophy is that he always refers to the teachers as she and he paints all “categories” of children with a very sweeping brush with some very bizarre assumptions thrown into his research. Overall I think his claims about the mental abilities of “bright students” were the most accurate. Particularly when it comes to their possession of “desirable powers of self-criticism”(p. 138). As someone who got high standardized test scores throughout my K-12 education and attended Honors and AP classes, self-criticism is something I have struggled with myself, along with many of my classmates. Students should have the metacognitive skills to examine their thought processes and the quality of their work but there is also a point where it becomes unattainable perfectionism. This is something that has always been somewhat inherent in my personality but I think it was at times somewhat encouraged in “bright classes” particularly in high school.

Some points from the Adam’s and Brown list of characteristics of bright students that I agreed with included 14. They often have the home advantages of superior cultural conditions and 22. They occasionally tantalize teachers and prove to be a source of worry to them, because they are so keen that they surpass the teacher in mental activity (p. 138). There may have been a few moments in high school when I may have been that antagonizing student. But there were also points on that list were completely ridiculous including that bright children are generally above the average in physical growth and exceed others in strength, speed, and muscular coordination (Baker, p. 140). While this assumption may be true if Baker had prefaced that students may be more likely to be considered bright if they were put in kindergarten at a later age and therefore may be bigger than their five year old or newly six year old peers. A question I had from reading this selection was based on Baker’s mention of bright students being able to do many tasks at once. Considering the technological age we live in where we are often multi-tasking, would more children be considered “bright” now than in 1936? This video was just posted on a magazine site I love to read, mainly because the little girl is so cute and excited to see her dad's face on the television screen. According to the blurb with the video on Jezebel, she is a little younger than three years old.

Another point from Baker’s article that I drew parallels with our modern age was his assumption that “slow” children tire relatively easily and have short spans of attention (p. 146). It seems as if even adult attention spans are growing shorter now because we live in such a culture of instant satisfaction based around technology. This point made me wonder if more children would be considered slow now than in 1936 because of their attention spans?  I just found this website by typing attention span into Google so I can’t be sure how accurate its statistic are, but if they are anything close to accurate humans now have shorter attention spans than fish.

Attention Span Statistics

Overall I think his most disturbing comment throughout the whole article was about the quality of teaching for all students. “Relatively, bright pupils profit most and the slow pupils least from superior teaching,”(p. 146). Based on his assumptions the majority of children would probably fall in his average to slow categories in the present day. Thankfully we don’t look at student’s ability this concretely today (except for on standardized tests). All students deserve a teacher who not only has studied education and teaches to the best of their ability, but also one who loves working with students and provides a grounding and positive influence in their life.