{"id":63446,"date":"2025-06-30T13:27:58","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T21:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.abcmouse.com\/learn\/?p=63446"},"modified":"2025-06-30T13:28:01","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T21:28:01","slug":"differentiating-instruction-and-engaging-families-with-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.abcmouse.com\/learn\/abcmouse\/differentiating-instruction-and-engaging-families-with-technology\/63446","title":{"rendered":"Differentiating Instruction and Engaging Families with Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Differentiating Instruction and Engaging Families with Technology<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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By Dr. Leslie Ponciano\u2020<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Table of Contents – Jump to Each Section<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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2011\u20132012: Differentiating Instruction<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2012\u20132013: Engaging Families<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Impact on Student Achievement<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cMy students were off the charts. In fact, the computer kept telling me as I was entering their scores that they weren\u2019t valid scores. They most likely couldn\u2019t have scored that high for this age. But it was child after child after child that kept having a high score.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u2014Julie Choudhary, Escondido, CA<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Julie Choudhary, a 25-year-veteran kindergarten teacher, returned to her hometown of Escondido, California, to teach in the public schools in 2002 because of her commitment to the community. Escondido is a city of 150,000 in inland Southern California; its population is approximately 50% Latino, with a significantly lower median household income and higher poverty rate than the rest of the state. Julie\u2019s students are primarily from low-income families and learn English in her classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2011\u20132012: Differentiating Instruction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

During the 2011\u20132012 school year, one of Julie\u2019s students repeatedly requested she bring ABCmouse.com Early Learning Academy into the classroom, and Julie explored it for the first time mid-year. \u201cIt took me five minutes to register my class. And it was the easiest and most worthwhile thing I\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julie introduced the comprehensive early learning website to her class primarily as a language model. \u201cIt was fascinating. I would have students who were almost non-verbal using scientific or social studies words that I wouldn\u2019t think a five-year-old would use.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Research Insights:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Significant vocabulary gaps have been found between children living in English-speaking and non-English-speaking homes.1<\/sup> Research supports the strategies of teaching the meaning of basic words and providing ample review with student-directed reinforcement activities.2<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Julie assigned every child an individualized lesson on ABCmouse.com each day, according to the areas of need indicated by a standardized assessment administered at the beginning of the year. \u201cThey have to do one complete lesson every day. And then they\u2019re allowed to go to their bedroom or their hamster on ABCmouse.com and to use their tickets and go shopping. Because that\u2019s exciting to the children . . . .\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julie discovered that she could differentiate her instruction with ABCmouse.com\u2019s Lesson Builder, which allowed her to select and assign specific learning activities for individual students, groups of students, or the entire class. Julie attributed her students\u2019 success on the end-of-year assessments to her ability\u2014using ABCmouse.com\u2014to meet their individual academic needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Research Insights:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Differentiated instruction allows teachers to meet the needs of diverse students through a variety of teaching strategies, including dynamic grouping, targeting multiple strengths, and implementing different types of activities.3<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cAs in any class, you have students that are at different levels. So, I\u2019ll have a group lesson where maybe students are working on subtraction at the beginning of the year. Or, I\u2019ll have a whole group lesson where students are working on a sight word or a word family. It just really depends on what the concept is that I am working on. I\u2019ll look at the DIBELS4 data and I\u2019ll go to the Lesson Builder and I\u2019ll pull [activities related to] those concepts into a student\u2019s file.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

2012\u20132013: Engaging Families<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The next fall, Julie began a one-to-one iPad program and opened up her classroom before and after school for students to use ABCmouse.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Research Insights:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research demonstrates that family engagement is one of the important keys to educational success.5<\/sup> Children achieve at higher levels in math, language, and literacy when their families are involved in their education.6<\/sup> However, many parents hesitate because they aren\u2019t confident about how to best support their children.7<\/sup> Similarly, teachers welcome family involvement, yet are uncertain if this is a reasonable expectation.8<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Not only did the students in her class come to learn on ABCmouse.com, they also brought their parents and their siblings to use the website. Julie had found a unique way to engage families in the education of their children through technology, demonstrating that educational technology has the potential to open the virtual doors of the classroom for parents and foster a dialogue between teachers and families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI had parents knocking on the door early in the morning to come in and use ABCmouse.com, or staying late in the afternoon. Families that weren\u2019t in my class would come in to use the computer. I have families coming in and begging for their preschoolers to be on the site. I have toddlers to kindergarteners and even some older sisters and brothers using ABCmouse.com, either on the iPad or on the computer. And the parents are sitting with their kids\u2014with the whole family. It\u2019s been amazing, and the classroom is packed every day! ABCmouse.com helped make up a huge [family engagement] deficit in our classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Research Insights:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Position statements on both family engagement (2009) and technology (2012) from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) promote the importance of communication regarding educational goals and the provision of age appropriate online activities to achieve those goals.9<\/sup> The early childhood years are an important time to develop an understanding of the value of education for both children and their families. It is also a time when positive patterns of interaction between families and teachers can be established.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Julie discovered that the website\u2019s capability of providing all navigation options and instructions in Spanish helped parents understand what their children were learning in school and exposed the entire family to English vocabulary. \u201cThe parents are learning to speak English and to read and write, sometimes for the very first time, right along with their children.\u201d Speaking about one student\u2019s parents, Julie said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cHis dad was so worried and he told me, \u2018No English, Se\u00f1ora, no English.\u2019 The son cried for the first week because the only words he knew were \u2018no\u2019 and \u2018bathroom.\u2019 His family came in every day. They didn\u2019t have Internet at home. But his mom was bringing him and his younger brother before and after school every day, and if mom couldn\u2019t make it, dad changed his schedule at the farm to come in with them. And within two months, my student was joking around, laughing, and teaching, and you wouldn\u2019t know that he had zero English at the beginning of the school year. His mom was picking up on English and feeling more confident. You could just tell in the way she carried herself when she walked in the classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The impact was remarkable. Parents began initiating conversations with Julie about their children\u2019s educational progress. The students were staying on task and focused. \u201cI have twenty-five little bodies and twenty-five different things going on in the room. At the computers, the kids have their headphones on; they\u2019re all engaged. They might be talking or singing back at the computer but they\u2019re all focused and doing exactly what they need to be doing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Impact on Student Achievement<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At the end of 2011\u20132012, her first year using ABCmouse.com, Julie was surprised by the impact of the website on her students\u2019 achievement. \u201cTheir letter naming fluency and their concept of sound fluency increased significantly as the year went on.\u201d Overall, Julie\u2019s class improved by more than 50% on multiple early reading skills from the middle to the end of the year, with most of her students at least doubling their scores on one or more skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julie\u2019s use of ABCmouse.com to differentiate instruction and engage families during the 2012\u20132013 school year contributed to further positive outcomes for her students. At the beginning of the school year, 32% of her students were significantly below benchmark in literacy; by the end of the year, only 9% were in that category. And Julie\u2019s students\u2019 gains from the middle to the end of the year on key literacy skills were more than twice the national average (see chart).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julie opened the door of her classroom and provided educational technology to open up a new world of learning for her students and their families. Her success in differentiating instruction and engaging families using ABCmouse.com led to academic success for Julie\u2019s students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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See more research highlighting the proven benefits of digital game-based learning<\/a>, as well as it’s positive impact on children’s cognitive development<\/a> and social-emotional learning<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notes:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u2020 \u2020 Director of Research and Educational Partnerships, Age of Learning, Inc.; formerly Assistant Professor and Director of Early Childhood Education Master\u2019s Program, Loyola Marymount University <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1 National Center for Education Statistics, 2003<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2 August, Carlo, Dressler, & Snow, 2005 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3 Tomlinson, 2001<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4 The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) is a leading assessment of language and literacy skills for kindergarteners. http:\/\/dibels\/uoregon.edu\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5 Beveridge, 2005; Esler, Godber, & Christenson, 2002; Hara, 1998; Jeynes, 2007<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6 Griffith, 1996; Sui-Chu & Willms, 1996; Marcon, 1999; Sheridan, Knoche, Kupzyk, Edwards, & Marvin, 2011<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7 Eccles & Harold, 1993; DePlanty, Coulter-Kern, & Duchane, 2007<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8 Comer, 2001<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9 National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2009; 2012<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

August, D., Carlo, M., Dressler, C., & Snow, C. (2005). The critical role of vocabulary development for English language learners. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 20(1), 50\u201357. http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1111\/j.1540-5826.2005.00120.x.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beveridge, S. (2005). Children, families and schools: Developing partnerships for inclusive education. London: Routledge\/Falmer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comer, J. P. (2001). Schools that develop children. The American Prospect, 12(7), 3\u201312.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DePlanty, J., Coulter-Kern, R., & Duchane, K. A. (2007). Perceptions of parent involvement in academic achievement. The Journal of Educational Research, 100(6), 361\u2013368.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eccles, J. S. & Harold, R. D. (1993). Parent-school involvement during the early adolescent years. Teachers College Record, 94(3), 568\u2013587.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Esler, A. N., Godber, Y., & Christenson, S. L. (2002). Best practices in supporting home-school collaboration. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best Practices in School Psychology IV, (pp. 389\u2013411). Washington, DC: National Association of School Psychologists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Griffith, J. (1996). Relation of parental involvement, empowerment, and school traits to student academic performance. Journal of Educational Research, 90, 33\u201341.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hara, S. R. (1998). Parent involvement: The key to improved student achievement. School Community Journal, 8(2), 9\u201319.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeynes, W. H. (2007). The relationship between parental involvement and urban secondary school student academic achievement: A meta-analysis. Urban Achievement, 42(1), 82\u2013110.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marcon, R. (1999). Differential impact of preschool models on development and early learning of inner-city children: A three-cohort study. Developmental Psychology, 35(2), 358\u2013375.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

National Association for the Education of Young Children (2009). Family engagement, diverse families, and early childhood education programs: An integrated review of the literature. Retrieved from http:\/\/naeyc.org\/files\/naeyc\/file\/research\/FamEngage.pdf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

National Association for the Education of Young Children (2012). Technology and interactive media as tools in early childhood programs serving children from birth through age 8. Retrieved from http:\/\/naeyc.org\/files\/naeyc\/PS_technology_WEB.pdf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

National Center for Education Statistics (2003). The nation\u2019s report card. Retrieved from http:\/\/nces.ed.gov\/nationsreportcard\/pdf\/main2003\/2005453.pdf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sheridan, S. M., Knoche, L. L., Kupzyk, K. A., Edwards, C. P., & Marvin, C. A. (2011). A randomized trial examining the effects of parent engagement on early language and literacy: The getting ready intervention. Journal of School Psychology, 49(3), 361\u2013383.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sui-Chu, E. H. & Willms, J. D. (1996). Effects of parental involvement on eighth-grade achievement. The Sociological Quarterly, 69(2), 126\u2013141.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tomlinson, C. A. (2001). How to differentiate instruction in mixed-ability classrooms (2nd Ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TM & \u00a9 2014 Age of Learning, Inc. All rights reserved. The names of other companies, products, and services are the property of their respective owners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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