Differentiation in Reception Class

[HorneG18]

Dear all,

I work in Reception - full time teacher, 1 adult supporting throughout the week but differs who this may be depending on the day and timetabling. We have 20 children. I have a range of needs and I feel like I'm struggling to differentiate for areas such as phonics - any suggestions. Feeling very overwhelmed at the moment to show progress and learning through play.

Thanks,

Gem

[BenTapestrySupport]

Do you follow a scheme for phonics at the moment? It's going to be a real struggle in any classroom with only 1 supporting adult however you approach it. 

One thing I used to do was let the class go off in their child initiated time with the other adult supporting children as and when, and you take a smaller group for a phonics session. It's not easy though - the children doing phonics can struggle to stay engaged as there is more going on around them, so short burst sessions are needed. The other adult also needs to be constantly moving around, supporting all the other children as much as they can, without taking their focus off the others too. During this time, another option would be to only have 'phonics' focus activities which isn't really ideal for EYFS, but does mean that the general noise in the room is phonics based too, and if you are able to keep sessions short, you would be able through whole class fairly quickly if there were 6/7 children working with you at a time for about 10 minutes. You could then tailor the groups so that the children were roughly all accessing the same things.