This article identifies problems in traditional spelling instruction for students with written language difficulties, notes remedial approaches, and considers adaptive approaches including the use of electronic spellcheckers. The use of personal student spelling dictionaries is recommended for both whole language and strategy language arts…

There is no contradiction between effective standards-based instruction and differentiation. Curriculum tells teachers what to teach; differentiation tells how. Teachers can challenge all learners by providing standards-based materials and tasks calling for varied difficulty levels, scaffolding, instructional styles, and learning times. (MLH)

Based on 5 years' experience, the Project Challenge coordinator for the Pittsford (New York) Central School District explains how to implement differentiated instruction. Teachers should find a buddy, align objectives, find out what students know, plan flexible grouping, encourage student responsibility, and provide choices. (MLH)

Individualized activity schedules were successfully used with a 4- year-old child with autism who attended an integrated public pre-school classroom. Graduated physical guidance and a system of most-to-least prompts were used during skill acquisition stages with teacher proximity and level of prompts being eventually faded. (Contains nine…

Seven young children with autism and eight with pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified were randomly assigned to intensive treatment or parent training. At follow-up, the intensive treatment groups outperformed the parent training group on measures of intelligence, visual-spatial skills, language, and academics, though not on…

Presents some easy ways to individualize instruction in the classroom. Examines the use of dialogue journals as modeled in "In The Middle: New Understandings About Writing, Reading, and Learning" (Atwell, 1998) as a means of differentiating reading instruction for individual seventh-grade students. Examines how the teachers used the dialogue…

Examined whether students' motivational reaction toward self-study text could be influenced by the inclusion of additional instructional materials (nonprint media). Participants were 969 students enrolled in an independent study course. Results suggest that student motivation in print-based self-study courses can be improved by the inclusion of…

This article addresses curriculum development for students with severe, profound, and multiple learning difficulties in the context of British National Curriculum requirements. It suggests that practitioners have recognized the dangers of "complementary curricula" but are using the concept of "subjects as contexts of…

One of the more effective ways to convey the story of our origin and evolution is to present the entire chronicle in a multimedia format that allows today's tech-savvy students to browse at will, thereby extracting parts of the story at their own pace and comfort. This article describes an interactive CD-ROM (included in this issue of "The Science…

In this article, the author presents a case study of one charter school that challenges the meaning of a public school education for diverse students from a different perspective. Embedded in the rhetoric of change and reform, charter schools have become a logical alternative to public education for discontented parents, teachers, community…

Correctional education programs for incarcerated adults have been an object of much discussion. While such programs appear to be readily available to incarcerated individuals, little information is known about the instructional characteristics of such programs. The purpose of this survey was to describe the characteristics of instructional…

Offering differentiated courses to cater for a wide range of ability can lead to "dumbing down" when brighter students choose easier courses, which they can handle well without undue effort. This occurred when differentiated English courses were introduced in the senior secondary certificate in the state of New South Wales (NSW) in…

This study examines the role of lesson plan design in helping teacher candidates to meet diverse learning needs. The authors studied student teachers who had been taught to use a differential lesson plan to see if they were differentiating in their planning, assessment, and instruction. They concluded that, indeed, lesson plan design does…

A collaborative research project, which was offered as an alternative to traditional undergraduate independent study courses, is discussed. The authors describe the characteristics of traditional independent study courses and how collaborative research efforts differ from them. Such projects provide an in-depth exposure to the topic under study,…

Effective professional learning requires that staff developers thoughtfully plan to meet varying teacher needs and be responsive to differences--that they model the differentiation teachers will practice in the classroom. Staff developers must be mindful of participants' current learning needs and plan according to their readiness, interest, and…