Differentiation Levels Reference Chart

The Amplify ELA curriculum is designed so that, whenever possible, one engaging activity serves the needs of every student, providing appropriate challenge and access for all. The program was built on the principles of Universal Design for Learning and reviewed by CAST, a non-profit education research and development organization. In cases when Amplify’s Universal Design cannot meet the needs of all learners, the program provides materials that enable teachers to deliver differentiated instruction to help each and every student meet grade-level standards.

Universal Design

Core: Universal Design is at the center of these activities and they are designed to support students in reading and understanding complex texts. Over-the-Shoulder Conferences are found at this level, but can be used with students working in all levels of an activity.

Additional Support

	Light: This level is designed for students who are often able to work independently with the vocabulary, language, and syntax in complex texts. Supports often include sentence starters to help students respond to the same prompt as the prompt in the Core level.
	Moderate: This level of support is designed for students who need clear and regular supports to work with the vocabulary, language, and syntax in complex texts. Supports often include guiding questions, a list of ideas to think about, sentence starters, and simplified language in the prompt.
_	Substantial: This level of support is designed for students who need significant scaffolding to read complex texts. Supports often include breaking the prompt into smaller chunks or short answer questions, shortening the reading passage, providing guiding questions, quotes from the text, a simplified writing prompt, and/or sentence starters.

Extend

Challenge: This level of support is designed for students who read and understand text at their grade band of complexity easily and fluently. Often the core prompts are appropriate for these students. These prompts often ask students to compare two sections of text, to create counterarguments, or to find evidence to support both sides of an argument.