DETECTIVES Teacher's Guide - Book - Page 14
THE DETECTIVES - TEACHER’S GUIDE
X. Teaching Tips
i. Heterogeneity:
In the mixed ability classroom, it’s important to divide the given activities into different levels thus
enabling all the students to participate and work on the same materials. Keep in mind that the level
presented in the book is the average level for the grade.
Some ideas for different levels in a variety of activity types:
For less- able students:
Find the words in the text and copy the sentence into your notebooks.
Look up the words and write their definitions.
Put the words in alphabetic order.
Copy the verbs from the text that are in the tense that was taught.
For more- able students:
Write sentences using the vocabulary.
Make your own "fill in the blanks" and have your partner solve it.
Ask two more questions about the text and have your partner answer them.
Write another ending to the story.
Write to one of the characters and ask him / her a question.
Look up (whatever topic is being discussed) and teach your friends more about it.
In the Let’s Read exercises in the section called Reading in the Teacher’s Guide, the questions are
graded and will lead to different levels of work. In order to ensure that all the students are able to
participate in the reading of a passage, the questions range from simple to more sophisticate.
In the Let's Do It exercises, you can have the less-able students use the examples from the book to
ensure their success. The more-able students could make up their own slogans, sentences or writing
where appropriate instead of using the suggestions in the book.
There are many Let's Write exercises that have the students fill in the missing word/words. Other
tasks call for freer production. In the free production exercises, have the less-able students copy
relevant sentences from the texts that were read in class, thus allowing them to participate and
succeed. The more-able students should be encouraged to write twice as much as what was
requested in the task.
The Workbook is divided into levels, so the less-able students will always be able to do the activities
that don't have a magnifying glass next to them. You should encourage them to try to reach the
activities with two magnifying glass since those are the average level ones, and our desire is for
everyone to at least reach the level of the class. While everyone is expected to be able to do the
exercises with two smiling faces, the more-able students should be encouraged to strive for the
three smiling faces, as those are the most advanced activities.
You will also find many suggestions for different activities at different levels scattered throughout
the Teacher's Guide. Remember, all the students could and should be involved. These are some
ideas for helping them all succeed. Feel free to add your own ideas and expand on what was
suggested here. Take advantage of all the extra ideas available to ensure that all the students in your
class are able to participate and enjoy the book.
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