We’re at the midpoint of the two-year phase-in of the city’s new reading programs for elementary schools. Given the city’s diverse student population, the most pressing issue for educators has been how to differentiate instruction to reach all students. Can any common curriculum be flexible and adaptable enough to meet the needs of students with disabilities, English language learners and accelerated learners?

“The curriculum gives you supplements,” said Ramatu Kallon, a UFT Teacher Center coach and special educator. “But if you really want your kids to get the most out of what they’re learning, you have to provide those extra supports to them.”

In September 2023, new reading curricula grounded in the science of reading were piloted in roughly half of the city’s community school districts, with the remaining districts adopting a new program this upcoming school year.

Superintendents selected one of three DOE-approved reading programs to implement districtwide: Into Reading by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), Expeditionary Learning (EL) Education or Wit & Wisdom. HMH has been selected by all but 10 districts.

The curricula include a multitude of resources to help teachers differentiate instruction. Lessons may offer scaffolded instructions, multilingual supports and differentiated activities. But the overwhelming number of options can be a double-edged sword.

“There’s so much that it’s hard to navigate,” said Mary Kate Muller, a UFT Teacher Center literacy coach. “You’re an elementary teacher, and you’re doing reading, writing, math, science, social studies … it’s a lot.”

Muller also pointed out that while supplemental materials offer differentiation strategies, sometimes the essential questions or central ideas of a lesson do not. Teachers may need to “pull in their teaching skills to scaffold,” she said.

Rick Colon, an affiliate field liaison at the UFT Teacher Center and an ENL specialist, said a key factor often missing in supplemental resources is guidance for educators on how these materials can be integrated into instruction.

“People often misanalyze being given resources versus being taught how to intentionally use them,” he said. Colon and his UFT Teacher Center colleagues have been working to help teachers learn how to differentiate while still remaining faithful to the curriculum their school is using.

To fill the gap, the UFT Teacher Center has created curriculum guides for each of the three reading programs and instructional tools differentiated for struggling students. 

The UFT Teacher Center will also be offering workshops, office hours and professional development opportunities this summer to help teachers master the new reading programs, focusing on ways to differentiate lessons to meet the needs of diverse learners.

Christina Carvano, a 3rd-grade ICT teacher, had already been trained in HMH before coming to work at PS 54 on Staten Island. She proved to be a secret weapon in helping her fellow teachers make the transition from balanced literacy to the new curriculum this school year.

At PS 54, intervisitations are part of the culture so teachers can observe and learn from one another, and many have come to watch Carvano implement HMH strategies in her classroom. She often uses parallel teaching, where she and her co-teacher will each instruct a small group of students at the same time, and she differentiates instruction by organizing students into literacy-focused center activities.

Carvano agreed that the amount of information can be daunting when you first sit down with the program. “It’s like an ocean, and you are swimming through it,” she said.

She suggests looking through materials in the teacher corner of the digital HMH platform to help narrow down options. The key, she said, is to remember to “zero in on what’s important and what your students need.”

Teachers may reasonably want to integrate their own proven differentiation methods into the new reading programs. Kallon helps teachers incorporate strategies they already have in their toolbox, such as graphic organizers and charts, chunking text and small group instruction.

“You still want to follow the curriculum,” she said, but also determine “ways of breaking things into smaller chunks so it’s more digestible.”

If they meet resistance from their principal, Colon suggests “marrying the language of the curriculum” to develop a rationale for using your own materials by “fitting them in with the same modules and the same instructional questions.” This extra step, he said, will demonstrate your choices are “intentional and you are following the curriculum.”

Even the DOE’s own NYC Reads page acknowledges what the educator brings to the equation: “A curriculum provides the framework of what to teach … but a strong educator must bring their added value, strategies, personality and knowledge of their students to the work as well.”

Carvano said differentiation is necessary to hold to the tenets of specially designed instruction. “You are meeting your children where they are,” she says, “and you’re creating a ladder so they can grow and be successful.”