So you have a student (or a handful of students) who need extra support to succeed in math. Math differentiation strategies might do the trick, but how can you know whether differentiation is enough or whether your student needs a more targeted intervention strategy?
When Is Differentiation The Answer?
Differentiation is your first line of defense in the classroom. As a teacher, you are a natural at making small tweaks here and there in order to support your students.
Math differentiation may be as simple as:
- Providing students a manipulative to use during independent work.
- Providing students a different manipulative that might be more supportive.
- Assigning a different number of problems for independent practice.
- Assigning different focus problems for different groups of students from the independent practice in your curriculum.
- Changing the product you are asking for during independent practice (Instead of a pencil paper task, could your students demonstrate their understanding using manipulatives and drawing a diagram to match on a white board?)
- Changing the space your student is sitting in so that they are nearby and you can notice misconceptions as soon as they arise.
No matter the small tweaks you are making, if you are supporting your students in accessing the regular tier 1 instruction and they are finding success through the use of those modifications, simple math differentiation is absolutely the answer for your students.
When Might a Student Need Math Intervention?
If you are consistently differentiating your instruction to make it accessible to your students and yet, you still have students who are not finding success with the tier 1 curriculum, you need to consider that small group math intervention is likely the answer!
Your students are likely missing foundational skills and understandings that are necessary to understand tier 1 instruction. You will need to implement a math intervention strategy that allows your students to fill in those gaps in understanding.
For example, imagine a 1st-grade class working to explore the counting-on strategy for addition. If you have a student in your classroom who doesn’t understand what addition means they will likely struggle with this strategy– it’s far ahead of their current level of understanding. A targeted intervention group focused on helping students understand the meaning of addition is exactly what that student needs to succeed now and moving forward!
A Simple Framework for Differentiation
This video lays out a simple 3-step framework for differentiation. This framework is the basis for differentiating tier 1 instruction, providing tier 2 support and planning tier 3 lessons and units!
Math Intervention Resources
If you determine you have students with foundational skill gaps (see the video above) I have materials that can help! Each of these units is built off of the 3-step framework of moving from concrete to representational to abstract to build a web of understanding for your students.
Kindergarten Math Intervention | First Grade Math Intervention | 2nd Grade Math Intervention
3rd Grade Math Intervention | 4th Grade Math Intervention | K-4 Interventionist Bundle
