Differentiated Instruction to Support High-Risk Preschool Learners

Differentiated instruction is a strategy for meeting the needs of diverse learners. In this article, we describe a differentiated instruction model and examine the effects on high-risk children. One hundred twenty-eight children and their teachers from 8 Head Start classrooms participated in the project. Teachers provided developmentally sequenced, tiered instruction primarily in small group formats. Children made gains on all areas assessed (vocabulary, emergent reading, alphabet knowledge, print concepts, phonological awareness, emergent math). A subgroup of higher risk children was defined as those who scored in the bottom 5th percentile on English vocabulary at the start of the school year. This higher risk group comprised 26% of the sample. Higher risk children made much larger gains on vocabulary over the course of the year than did their lower risk classmates and showed similar or slightly lower rates of change on other measures of early academic skills. Practical issues relating to the implementation of a differentiated instruction model are discussed.