"The Matthew Effect"

In reading chapter five one of the concepts that stood out to me was "The Matthew Effect." Prior to this chapter, I had never heard of it. The Matthew Effect is based on the principle of "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" (Graves,123.) This meaning that those students who enjoy reading tend to read more, and those who dislike reading tend to avoid it. This becomes an issue because though the children who are already skilled readers continue to excel, the poor readers fall even farther behind creating a huge gap. This gap in reading skills makes it hard for a single teacher to come into a classroom and provide every single student with developmentally appropriate lessons and material. This is where differentiated instruction comes in. Grave's explains how each student is different depending on their strengths, interests, and needs. He then goes on to explain how teachers are supposed to turn out students who are all "alike"- in the sense that they all can read well. In order to do this, differentiated instruction is necessary for students to learn at their own pace and in their own ways.
In my grade school students who were struggling readers were sent to the "reading van." This was my schools method of differentiated instruction, providing the struggling readers with extra time and attention in order to get their skills up to speed with the rest of the class. It was a good idea, in concept, but by taking the students out of our regularly scheduled classes for two hours a day it alienated them from the group and they were seen as "slow." Graves stated in the chapter that students who have difficulty reading avoid it because they do not see it as rewarding. I can only imagine that if a student had difficulty reading, and then was alienated from their peers for that reason, they would enjoy reading significantly less and therefor avoid it even further. There were methods of intervention discussed in the text such as small group instruction, differentiating texts, and differentiating tasks that could help a struggling reader without hurting their dignity.