Meeting the needs of diverse learners in our classrooms is a challenge. Indeed, it’s a crucial issue to address in the typical classroom of today where students range from those who are gifted, to students struggling with ESL issues, and where students present many different special needs and diverse learning issues. Thankfully, three outstanding Canadian educators have met and tackled this challenge and offer hands-on, well-tested strategies to deal with inclusion and diversity in the classrooms of this new millennium. Faye Brownlie, Catherine Feniak and Leyton Snellert’s book, “Student Diversity,” is an excellent guide on how to apply current research in education using engaging, fun and easy-to-use learning strategies. What becomes evident in “Student Diversity,” is that good teaching to diversity is good teaching for all. These well-articulated ideas, learning sequences and lesson plans will enhance learning in any classroom from Grades 4 through 12!

A well-organized and practical resource, Brownlie, Feniak, and Snellert present a broad range of effective ways to meet the needs of all students. “Student Diversity” outlines a wealth of diverse teaching strategies which enable all students to successfully learn. Within its covers, educators will find a wide array of practical examples based on the authors’ experiences in their own classrooms. The book also offers a variety of diverse and purposeful ways for students to represent and demonstrate learning. Simply put, the authors of “Student Diversity” have produced a powerful model using what we know to be best practice in teaching and learning in order to make a difference for all learners. 

“Student Diversity” is grounded in current research about wise educational practice in literacy, numeracy and formative assessment. Each lesson or strategy is founded on what we know makes a difference for students in teaching and learning. Geared for educators from Grades 4 through 10, Brownlie, Feniak and Snellert offer practical ideas for teachers of diverse grade levels and across all content areas. The book demonstrates models of collaborative practice between classroom and resource teachers that move learners forward. Through the use of concrete examples from real classrooms, thoughtful cross-curricular literacy strategies, and helpful templates and graphic organizers, “Student Diversity” definitely makes the grade! 

The intended learning outcomes for the book are to contribute to the discussion of practices that further professional learning, to showcase and foster ongoing formative assessment, and to model options to track ongoing summative assessment of students and programs. It meets the target. Written in an easy-to-read format, the chapters of “Student Diversity” not only build on one another in crystallizing a vision of education that embraces and includes all learners, but also function as stand-alone reference points in the individual chapters. This approach allows teachers to grasp the overarching big ideas, and also to focus on specific areas of their practice which they want to enhance. 

“Student Diversity” includes chapters on using the Standard Reading assessment to inform instruction, and to plan lessons that improve reading informational text. The reader is guided towards successful lesson plans for implementing writing workshops and improving narrative writing. Likewise, explicit ideas and strategies for literature circles, an incredibly powerful literacy practice using diverse text are outlined. Another chapter discusses new ways to approach the single-class novel while meeting the needs of learners with ESL, learning disabilities or those who are gifted. Integration of Social Studies and English Language Arts themes, strategies to improve reading in Science, and problem-solving strategies in Math round out the array of ways “Student Diversity” addresses the needs of all students. 

By Terri Taylor

Terri Taylor is a teacher, counselor and school district literacy coordinator in rural British Columbia, Canada