🌍 SIOP + Diffit Toolkit

Support English learners with structured, research-based strategies—without lowering the bar. This toolkit shows how to bring the eight components of SIOP to life using Diffit’s leveled texts, vocabulary tools, and writing supports.

Effective instruction for multilingual learners doesn’t mean simplifying content—it means making it comprehensible. With Diffit, you can pair grade-level ideas with leveled access points, vocabulary scaffolds, and structured responses. This toolkit highlights Diffit activities that align with SIOP’s eight components so you can plan lessons that are rigorous, clear, and inclusive.

Whether you’re teaching whole-class, small groups, or individual students, these strategies help ELs engage with core texts and build academic language.

How to Use This Toolkit

Each section corresponds to one of the 8 SIOP components. Pair these activities with Diffit’s leveled texts, vocabulary supports, and response formats to scaffold instruction in practical, repeatable ways. Start with one or two components, then layer others into your planning over time.

📖 Lesson Preparation

Plan lessons with clear content and language objectives, and provide multiple entry points into complex texts.

  • Reading Passage: Assign leveled texts as a preview before the grade-level version.
  • Cornell Notes (Learning Objective): Capture key ideas and questions during reading.
  • Visual Summary By Paragraph: Break content into visuals that highlight main points.

🌱 Building Background

Connect new ideas to students’ prior knowledge and explicitly teach critical vocabulary.

  • Key Vocabulary with Images: Teach concepts with visuals to anchor meaning.
  • Frayer Model: Vocabulary: Deepen understanding with definitions, examples, and non-examples.
  • Vocabulary Matching: Reinforce word knowledge through interactive practice.

🗣️ Comprehensible Input

Ensure students can access content with leveled supports, visuals, and clear language.

  • Reading with Image: Combine text with visuals to clarify meaning.
  • Read and Annotate: Highlight and comment to scaffold comprehension.
  • Cloze Reading: Strengthen fluency and meaning-making with context clues.

🧠 Strategies

Teach explicit approaches for analyzing and making sense of text.

  • Main Idea (By Paragraph): Guide students to extract central ideas step by step.
  • Making Inferences: Use text clues plus background knowledge to extend meaning.
  • Causes and Effects: Show how events or concepts are linked in the passage.

🤝 Interaction

Embed structured opportunities for students to practice language with peers.

  • Think Pair Share: Rehearse ideas aloud before writing or sharing publicly.
  • Group Discussion: Engage in accountable talk using guiding questions.
  • Partner Share: Provide sentence frames for supported practice in pairs.

✍️ Practice & Application

Give students hands-on and varied ways to apply new content and language.

  • Answer and Explain: Respond to questions with evidence and reasoning.
  • ACE Short Answer Question: Scaffold writing with the Answer–Cite–Explain format.
  • Flow Chart Map: Visualize processes or sequences to apply understanding.

📊 Lesson Delivery

Keep students engaged and ensure both content and language objectives are supported throughout the lesson.

  • Multiple Choice Questions: Check for understanding during reading.
  • Reading with Discussion Questions: Facilitate talk while monitoring comprehension.
  • Short Answer Questions: Provide structured opportunities for students to practice academic language.

🔁 Review & Assessment

Build in opportunities to review key concepts and assess understanding in varied ways.

  • 3-2-1 What I Learned: Quick reflection to summarize takeaways.
  • Social Media Summary: Synthesize ideas into a concise, creative format.
  • CER Open Ended Question: Demonstrate learning through Claim–Evidence–Reasoning.