Differentiation would be more like individualizing the instruction, maybe changing the activity or the assignment, whereas accommodation would be more like providing support or tools to support the learning, to support the same activity that everyone else is doing.
~ Zeba McGibbon from Episode 75 of The Kindergarten Cafe Podcast
Episode Summary
How exactly do we differentiate for students in our classrooms? In this episode, I explore the essential components of differentiating instruction in kindergarten, sharing actionable strategies and insights beneficial for educators. I clarify the differences between differentiation and accommodation and give you practical examples. I demonstrate how to effectively implement these approaches for various learning challenges, including those faced by students with ADHD and English Language Learners. I also discuss the importance of challenging advanced students and utilizing targeted small group instruction.
In this episode I share:
- Understanding Differentiation vs. Accommodation
- Examples of Differentiation in Action
- Accommodating Students with Writing Challenges
- Differentiating for Advanced Learners
Related Episodes:
- Supporting Missing Skills in Kindergarten Math ~ Ep. 68
- Engaging Families in Supporting Struggling Learners ~ Ep. 67
- Strategies for Supporting Neurodivergent Students in the Classroom ~ Ep. 59
- Supporting Beginning Writers ~ Ep. 7
- Using Writing Goals to Empower Young Writers ~ Ep. 24
- Math Intervention for Kindergarten – Ep. 18
- Empowering Educators with Effective Student Progress Tracking ~ Ep. 11
Resources Mentioned:
- Year-Long Literacy Support for Small Group Instruction BUNDLE -Reading & Writing
- Kindergarten Math for the WHOLE YEAR | Math Games, Centers, and Small Groups
Connect with Zeba:
- Instagram – @kindergartencafe
- Facebook – @kindergartencafe
- Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
- Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe
Read the Transcript
[0:00] Hey, teacher friends, it’s Zeba, and I just wanted to remind you, if you prefer to read the information instead of listening to the information, you can read the transcript of every episode on my website, kindergartencafe.org, as well as through the Apple podcast app. For sure, they have the transcript right there. Now, see, that was an example of differentiation and accommodation. If you learn better with reading, then you should have access to the through reading versus listening. I sometimes, when I’m listening to podcasts, need to read the transcript while it’s going. If I miss something and I really want to catch what they said, I like to be able to have that option. So I’m glad to be able to give that option to you. But also, it’s a great example because today’s topic is all about differentiating instruction in kindergarten. So if you want tips and ideas or just want to think about ways to differentiate, like, let’s get into it. Let’s talk about it.
[1:09]Music. You’re listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast, where kindergarten teachers come to learn classroom-tested tips and tricks and teaching ideas they can use in their classroom right away. I’m Zeba, creator and founder of Kindergarten Cafe, and I help kindergarten teachers with everything they need from arrival to dismissal in order to save time, work smarter, not harder, and support students with engaging and purposeful lessons. I’m here to cheer you on through your successes and breakthroughs and offer support and resources so you never have to feel stuck or alone. Ready to start saving time and reducing your stress all while using effective and purposeful lessons that students love? Let’s get started.
[1:42] Music. Before we start talking about differentiation, I want to think about the difference between differentiation and accommodation. So differentiation would be more like, individualizing the instruction, maybe changing the activity or the assignment, whereas accommodation, would be more like providing support or tools to support the learning, to support the same activity that everyone else is doing. So they’re related, but they’re slightly different. And for me, it comes down to, if I’m trying to decide if I should differentiate or accommodate for a student, it comes down to what is the goal of the lesson. For example, well, I have a bunch of examples that I’m going to get into that I think will be, it’ll be much more helpful for you to hear the different examples. So I will, I’ll get into those examples. First example, the student hasn’t learned their letters and sounds yet, but it’s independent reading time per your curriculum, per your district expectations. It’s not very useful to be asking those children that haven’t learned their letters or sounds to be reading.
[3:06] And what is the goal of that reading time to help increase the students’ literacy? So shouldn’t we be focusing more on their foundational literacy skills then so that they can eventually get to reading? Yeah, I can put a book in front of them and they can look at the pictures, but that’s not helping them move forward with their foundational literacy skills. So I would, in this case, differentiate by not having them read and instead having them work with me or do a phonics activity on their own. Ideally work with me because it’s just going to be much more effective. And then if they’re not working with me, I could have them find letters in their books or give them books that are alphabet books or are wordless books where they’re telling the stories. And that would be more accommodation where I’m giving them different books to support them versus differentiation where I’m giving them something totally different to do of different phonics activity. But again, the goal for me is I want them to learn how to read. How do we get there? They need foundational literacy skills. They need to learn their letters and sound. So let’s work on that instead of just having them sit there looking at pictures.
[4:16] Okay, example number two. A student struggles with number ID or counting, and the class is working on addition. So let’s say they’re doing a worksheet that has a story problem of there’s four ducks on the pond and two ducks join them come and join the pond. The goal of the lesson is for them to be able to add. So I can support them by accommodating them by giving them actual objects to do the addition with and I can sit there with them and I can say count out four I can kind of break it down to them. Now in this case the class might have several story problems, But I might only ask these students that struggle, the student that struggles with this to do one problem or two, depending on time, because I know that they’ll be much more effective if I’m there with them. If they have the actual objects there with them, that’s the accommodation.
[5:14] We could differentiate by not having them do the whole amount because that just might be too much. And if we get to the goal of the lesson of them taking the four cubes and then adding the two cubes, they’re getting to the goal of adding. But then I can focus more on the work that they really need to be doing, the foundational work of counting out the cubes, of matching the cubes, writing down the number with a number line to how many they found things like that so yeah they can still do what the class is doing even if they don’t have those foundational skills but they’re going to need definitely some accommodation with the cubes and the number line and they’re probably going to need some differentiation of maybe not having them do as many problems as the class is doing and you’re definitely going to want to work with them in a small group to build those foundational skills that are missing.
[6:08] And I have a whole episode on that for math. I’ll link that below. So example number three, a student struggles with writing. And it’s science time, and you’re doing a science experiment and asking the kids to write about what they observed. This happens a lot, and I see the value in it. There’s a lot of value in having kids draw and write what they observe in science, what they learn in science or social studies. And like, that’s why teaching science consultations can be so interconnected with literacy, and I think it should be, but that’s for a different topic here.
[6:43] So again, it comes down to what is the goal of the lesson. The goal is can the kid reflect on what they saw in the experiment, not can they write it. This is not a writing lesson. The goal here is not writing, the goal here is the science experiment. So have them tell you what they observed, and you write it down for them. Let them do the drawing, have them tell you what they observed and you do the writing or you write on a post-it note and have them write it or you write it in highlighter and have them trace over it you could do any of those things, but you shouldn’t be forcing them to write if that’s something they really struggle with like get to the goal of the lesson which is explaining what happened in the science experiment, that’s what we really want to know we want to know can they observe and figure out what happened not can they write about what happened so that would be accommodation because you are accommodating them by writing it for them and they’re still doing the activity it’s just that you’re taking away that expectation of them writing and you’re providing the writing for them they can get complicated differentiation versus accommodation ultimately they go to the same goal of supporting students when they’re struggling.
[7:52] That’s what I believe. Special ed teachers, if you’re listening, please feel free to jump in and correct me, but it doesn’t really matter if it’s accommodation or differentiates.
[8:01] The point is, this is how I would support the student in this activity. Now, example number four. You have an ELL student, or so student learning English, during writing time. I would accommodate the student by giving them a visual dictionary, or like a visual word bank, so they have the access to the vocabulary that the kids that are native English speakers have. They have how to spell them right in front of them and what they mean with the pictures. That is a really good way to accommodate for them during writing time. They’re still writing just like everyone else, but they have this support of a visual word bank or a visual picture dictionary. You can also accommodate them by giving them sentence frames. This can be really powerful by having them finish the sentence. So you start it for them, like you could write a whole book on things they like, and you could start it for them saying, I like blank, and then they fill in with the word bank. This has to be taught, but it’s a really good way to accommodate for English learners during writing. I have a whole English language supports product that has all of the examples that I’ve talked about here and more for how to support kids during writing who are learning English.
[9:17] Okay, example number five. I have a student with ADHD and it’s math time and we’re doing a math worksheet and they are struggling with staying focused on completing the work. Now, I have a whole podcast episode on supporting neurodiversity in the classroom that I will link, which has a ton of resources and ideas for you for supporting students with ADHD or autism. But in this case, the goal is, let’s say it’s an addition math worksheet okay the goal is for them to solve some addition problems do i need them to solve every single one no i don’t i can pick and choose the most important ones i can reduce the work expectations for them so that they can be successful with those problems and then they can earn a break, because typically someone with ADHD might struggle with sustaining attention, and they will start to be unsuccessful if we’re asking them to sustain attention beyond what they’re capable of currently. So let’s set them up for success by reducing the expectation of how long they’re expected to work for, how many problems are expected to solve. You could also accommodate by having them work in a separate area or have a privacy shield so they’re not distracted.
[10:35] Giving them a bouncy band, like there’s a ton of ways to accommodate in that neurodiversity episode, but that would be sort of my go-to way to differentiate for them would be to take away some of the expectation of how long they’re working on that worksheet for. Okay, our final example is another reason we might need to differentiate or accommodate, and that’s for students who have already mastered the content standards.
[11:01] Usually when we think of differentiation, we might think of only the kids who haven’t yet met the content standards and who we need to support more, but we should also be thinking about the kids that have already met the content standards, and we need to maybe differentiate for them to go above where they currently are, for them to keep progressing,
[11:20] instead of just doing what they already know how to do. How can we push them to progress, to get better? So for reading, reading can we give them harder books can we pair them up with kids that are reading harder books so they can talk about those books and have a better comprehension a focus right so for kids that are above the grade level in reading I tend to focus on comprehension with them can they talk about the book can they answer questions about the book I’ll give them book club pages for them to fill out and answer and have them write about the book that they’re reading that’s the goal for me when working with kids who are above reading. For kids who are above where I expect them to be in writing, give them pages with more lines. Let them write more. If you only have pages for two lines for the whole class.
[12:12] Guess what? Kids are only going to write two lines. If you open it up to four lines, six lines, and say, I really want to see you fill this whole page, because I know you can, they’re going to rise to that challenge. But only if you have that open to them. For kids that are above grade level in math, I might give them a challenge packet to do some puzzles. But like I said in the episode on math small groups that are linked here with supporting missing skills, but Kenkens, Sudoku, Kakuma, those are really good resources for kids that are above grade level in math. Because they take more of the critical thinking side of math versus the content. So what I focus on with kids that are above grade level in math are the practice standards in math, which are talking about math, explaining math to others, which is usually an area of weakness for kindergarten especially. But those kids that have memorized all the math facts, can they actually explain how they solved a problem? Often not. That’s usually where we focus on. explaining their thinking finding patterns that critical thinking uh and problem solving skills for the challenge puzzles like those are all really good places to target for kids that are already above grade level in math, So we don’t want to forget about those kids that are above grade level. They want to, we should differentiate for them as well.
[13:43] And not just the kids that are below our benchmarks. So those are some things to consider. So I hope you liked this episode on differentiation and accommodation.
[13:54] And if you like the style of the specific examples and how I would do that, let me know because I can do more of that. I liked thinking of this for you, thinking of the examples and how I would solve it. So if you liked it, let me know. But I do just want to reiterate, if you aren’t accommodating or differentiating, we want to make sure to pair that with targeted small groups to support the missing skills. So in the example of the math or the reading or the writing, if I’m giving them accommodations because they aren’t able to quite do what the class is doing, I need to also make sure that I’m spending time with them trying to fill those missing skills. And like I said, I have the whole episode on that for math that I’m linking here, so you can listen to that. But it’s not enough to just accommodate or differentiate. We want to make sure that the kids get a chance to learn what they haven’t learned yet. Why aren’t they able to do what the class is doing? We want to be able to support them so that they eventually can do what the class is doing. Our quote of the day is a funny one. A boy came out and said, I pooped, so I missed everything. So sometimes we need to accommodate or differentiate because they missed the whole lesson or they missed the whole work time. And maybe we need to cut their work short because they were spending so long in the bathroom and they missed all the directions.
[15:12] And if that’s not kindergarten reality, I don’t know what is. But I loved his honesty. I pooped, so I missed everything.
[15:19] Yeah, so I look forward to hearing about what you thought about this episode. And stay tuned for next week. We are launching into a mini series on literacy, all things literacy. So I can’t wait to get into that with you next week.
[15:36] Music.
[15:41] Thanks so much for listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information and resources or just head straight to kindergartencafe.org for all the goodies. If you liked this episode, the best ways to show your support are to subscribe, leave a review, or send it to a friend. I’ll be back next week with even more kindergarten tips. See you then.