Teachers are often told to differentiate instruction, provide accommodations, scaffold the language, and make lessons accessible to everyone.
All of those expectations matter.
The problem is that they can sound as though teachers are expected to create a separate lesson for every student in the room.
That is not sustainable.
I have co-taught in middle school ELA and science classrooms with multilingual learners, students with IEPs or 504 plans, and general education students working together. Students may be learning the same content, but they do not all need the same amount or type of support.
Inclusive teaching does not require teachers to do everything differently for everyone. It requires us to identify where students may have difficulty entering a task and provide support that addresses that barrier.
What Inclusive Teaching Means to Me
In practical terms, inclusive teaching means students have a reasonable opportunity to:
- Understand what they are being asked to do
- Enter the task without unnecessary confusion
- Remain involved in the thinking
- Show what they understand
That does not mean every student completes the assignment in exactly the same way.
It also does not mean every student receives every available scaffold.
Students with IEPs are entitled to the accommodations and specially designed instruction documented in their plans. Multilingual learners need access to both grade-level content and the language used to understand and communicate that content. Some students are both multilingual learners and students with disabilities. One need does not erase the other.
Teachers still have to make professional decisions about scaffolding, modeling, grouping, and how directions are presented.
Scaffolding and Differentiation Are Not the Same Thing
The words scaffolding and differentiation are often used interchangeably, but they are not identical.
Differentiation is the broader process of adjusting instruction based on student needs. A teacher may adjust the process, materials, level of support, or method students use to demonstrate understanding.
A scaffold is a support that helps a student complete work they could not yet complete independently.
Scaffolds might include:
- Sentence frames
- Word banks
- Models and exemplars
- Guiding questions
- Visuals
- Chunked directions
- Partially completed graphic organizers
A student may work toward the same learning goal as everyone else while using additional scaffolds.
This distinction matters because teachers do not always need another version of the lesson. Sometimes students simply need a clearer way into the existing lesson.
1. Identify the Language Students Need
A content objective explains what students are expected to learn. A language objective identifies how students will use language during the lesson.
For example, students might be expected to:
- Describe an observation
- Compare two characters
- Explain a scientific relationship
- Support a claim with evidence
- Discuss a pattern in data
Once the language demand is clear, the teacher can decide what support students need.
If students must explain a scientific relationship, a frame might be:
_____ changed because _____.
If students must support an inference, they might use:
The text says _____. I think this means _____.
A language objective does not need to become another elaborate part of the lesson plan. It should clarify the language students need to participate in the content.
2. Keep the Task but Adjust the Scaffold
One way I differentiate is by providing versions of the same graphic organizer with different levels of support.
Some students can begin with a blank organizer. Others may use a Basic version with more direct questions and sentence starters. An Intermediate version may provide structure while requiring the student to supply more of the language independently.
An exemplar can help students understand how information moves through the organizer.
The underlying task remains the same. Students may all be identifying evidence, explaining what it means, and developing an inference or conclusion.
What changes is the amount of support provided.
This approach is more manageable than creating several unrelated assignments. It also makes it easier to adjust support as students become more independent.
3. Prepare Students to Think Before They Write
Sometimes students struggle with writing because they are being asked to organize the content and produce the language at the same time.
Activities before writing can help students retrieve and organize what they know.
In a class I co-taught, students worked with examples of claims, evidence, and events from a text before beginning a written response. This could be done with cut-apart cards in small groups.
I have also seen the activity done with full sheets of paper. Some students held the different parts while the rest of the class worked together to place them in the correct order.
Students were still responsible for explaining the sequence or relationship. The activity simply gave them an opportunity to organize the ideas before facing a blank writing page.
This kind of preparation is useful for multilingual learners, but it can also help any student who understands the text and has difficulty deciding how to begin writing.
4. Adjust Sentence Support
Sentence frames can make academic language visible, but not every student needs the same frame.
A student at an earlier level of English proficiency may need a complete structure:
I observed _____. This tells me _____.
A student who needs less support might use a starter:
Based on the evidence, _____.
Another student may need only a list of transition words. Some students may not need a language scaffold at all.
The goal is not to make every response sound the same. The goal is to help students express thinking they already have.
Sentence frames should be reduced when students demonstrate that they can produce the language more independently. In an actual classroom, that process is not always as consistent or perfectly timed as it appears in professional development examples. It is still important to pay attention to whether the scaffold remains necessary.
5. Offer Different Response Options Carefully
Allowing students to respond in different ways can improve access, but only when the response option still measures the learning goal.
If the objective is to explain a science concept, students may be able to demonstrate understanding through a written explanation, labeled diagram, or oral response.
If the objective is specifically to write an evidence-based paragraph, an audio recording does not assess the same skill. The student may still need accommodations or scaffolds, but the writing cannot be removed without changing what is being assessed.
Before offering choices, ask:
Is the response format part of the skill, or is it simply one way to show the content knowledge?
That question helps prevent a well-intentioned support from accidentally changing the learning goal.
Supports That Often Help More Than One Group
Some practices can make a lesson clearer for many students:
- Predictable routines
- Chunked directions
- Visual models
- Think-alouds
- Checks for understanding
- Structured partner talk
- A clear first step
- Directions that remain available after the teacher stops speaking
Other supports respond to more specific needs.
Multilingual learners may need language objectives, vocabulary instruction, sentence frames, or structured opportunities to speak and write about the content. A student with an IEP may require text-to-speech, extended time, assistive technology, or another documented accommodation.
A support that helps everyone does not replace a student’s required services or accommodations.
Start With the Barrier
Teachers do not need to add every possible scaffold to every lesson.
Instead, look at the task and ask:
- Is the vocabulary likely to prevent students from understanding the content?
- Are there too many directions to hold in mind?
- Do students know what a successful response should include?
- Are they struggling with the content or with expressing it in English?
- Can students organize the information before they begin writing?
- Which students are ready for less support?
The answers help determine which adjustment is worth making.
Sometimes the change is as simple as adding one sentence frame, showing one model, numbering the directions, or giving students a familiar organizer.
Those adjustments do not solve every instructional problem. They can remove barriers that have little to do with the grade-level thinking students are supposed to do.
Final Thoughts
Inclusive teaching is not a matter of lowering expectations or creating a different lesson for every learner.
It means keeping the learning goal in view while deciding what students need to reach it.
Some students need a model. Others need vocabulary support, a sentence frame, a checklist, or a more guided organizer. Some are ready to work independently.
The purpose of a scaffold is not to make the task effortless. It is to provide enough support for students to do more of the thinking themselves.
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