Vocabulary Strategies

Proficiency level analysis

Introduction

Heterogeneous groups in pedagogy refer to assigning groups of students from diverse instructional levels to a shared classroom. For instance, a teacher may purposely pair low, medium, and high-level readers together in a set to read and interpret a given text together. Education precept states that in heterogeneous groups, positive independence develops when students of varying achievement levels work together to achieve educational goals.

Student Groupings

Heterogeneous grouping of students is beneficial to both students of lesser ability and advanced students. For students whose performance is low, it reduces the risk of being stigmatized, having low self-esteem, and lack of motivation. As opposed to grouping students of the same learning capability, heterogeneous grouping of students ensures that teachers challenge all students to perform well. Besides, a limited curriculum that restricts exposure to concepts that students considered to be poor performers is removed in heterogeneous grouping. Advanced students get a chance to mentor their colleagues and work together towards achieving instructional objectives. For example, Petie who is a proficient reader assists Jade who has basic reading skills in mastering pronunciation of words.

In reading classes, the heterogeneous grouping of students ensures that students of different reading abilities receive the same reading instructions. It eliminates the biasness present in homogeneous grouping where poor readers receive reading instructions that is inferior to higher ability readers in terms of reading materials, and time allocated for teaching, reading, and discussions (Garrett & Hong, 2016).

Conclusion

Teachers should strive to understand the capabilities of their students, assign work that each group member will tackle, and each member of the group must be accountable individually for work done to ensure the active participation of each member.

Chart for Reading Group 1

Reference

Garrett, R., & Hong, G. (2016). Impacts of grouping and time on the math learning of language minority kindergartners. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 38(2), 222-244