A Diagnostic Test to Help Junior Secondary Teachers Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction.

In Botswana junior secondary schools, students are taught in mixed ability classes. Teachers have trouble differentiating among students and addressing individual needs in English reading lessons. Teachers tend to give the same activities to the whole class, ignoring the needs of highly proficient students and students with reading difficulties. Ideally, assessment outcomes would describe students’ levels of performance, and teachers would use them to provide differentiated instruction that addresses students’ needs and helps them learn from each other. This would reflect recommendations made in Botswana’s Revised National Policy on Education.
The presenters propose that readers at different levels can be described according to:
a) Their ability to read individual words at different levels of difficulty
b) Their ability to read a short passage fluently and with expression
c) Their ability to read a passage and answer a basic comprehension question, an inference question and an opinion question.
The trial results of such a test and suggestions for appropriate classroom tasks are presented.