When I began student teaching this semester, I was unaware of just how much of a gap students face between Kindergarten and 1st grade. The students learn so much during this time period and while they come in from Kindergarten barely knowing their alphabet, they leave reading and writing fluidly and confidently.
At the beginning of the year when we began writing in our draft books, it was clear that our class had some knowledge gaps with some kids further along in their progress and some students that were growing at a slower pace. We had one student in particular who struggled setting up and writing in his draftbook. Ms. Mays showed me a few ways to differentiate and we decided to give the student more structure to work around and have him come up with sentences, we write them, and then he copies them. The example below is that students draft book entries with only about a week apart, see the amazing difference for yourself!
I decided that I wanted to showcase this particular example because this happened during my first week in the classroom and it had such a profound impact on me that it actually left me in happy tears. It made me feel like I could actually make a difference in my students lives.
Learning To Teach 