Meeting the Needs of Beginning Readers through Differentiated Instruction

Abstract

In Chapter 6 of this volume, Tunmer, Greaney, and Prochnow argued that the rigidly constructivist approach to literacy instruction in New Zealand has been a major contributing factor to the failure of New Zealand's national literacy strategy and the large variation in literacy scores on international surveys, such as the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). Prochnow, Tunmer, and Arrow, in Chapter 7 of this volume, extended this argument by showing that the failure to respond adequately to differences in literate cultural capital at school entry triggers Matthew effects in reading, which further helps to explain New Zealand's comparatively high levels of variability in test scores. In this chapter, we argue for differentiated instruction as an approach that is better suited to overcoming the differences in literate cultural capital at school entry than the current ``one-size-fits-all'', rigidly constructivist method.