Exploring the Effects of Differentiated Instruction on the Comprehension Skills of Students in English at Secondary Level
Abstract
This paper aims at finding out the impacts of differentiation on the comprehension skills of students and their learning achievement. The study focused on students with multiple abilities, and different intelligence; who need extra attention, time and curriculum foundation during the course of study time. Differentiated instruction is modifying teaching methodology according to the needs, interests or mental level of the learners so that the ultimate academic goal is achieved. This technique, though slow, yet it been proven to be effective in boosting the classroom learning environment. The mode of the study was quasi-experimental with a pretest and post-test. The study was conducted on 24 students of class IX in English in the district of Shikarpur, subjects using a convenient sampling technique. The selected sample was assigned to the experimental & control group. A pre-test on the reading comprehension and solving exercises was taken as a diagnostic assessment. The result produced that 24% (6) students could succeed in reading only the ninth-class English subject. Hence, the differentiated instruction approach was adopted by changing the teaching method i.e.
minimizing the reading material, intelligence and mental approach, and allowing to read a part of the passage and solve easy questions related to the passage. Later on, as per planning, a post-test was conducted where the results showed that 68% of students achieved remarkable progress in English reading & writing. This study provided encouraging insights into using differentiated instructions in improving language comprehension skills as compared to traditional teaching methods.
Keywords
Differentiated instruction, mixed-ability classroom, comprehension skills.
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