Mixed ability

Differentiating without writing three versions of everything

Every teacher knows what good differentiation looks like. The reason it doesn't happen isn't disagreement — it's that the standard advice assumes an evening you don't have.

8 min read

Short answer

Separate the techniques that cost preparation from the ones that cost nothing. Varying questioning, grouping, expected output and support during the lesson requires no materials at all. Reserve your actual preparation time for the reading text, which is the one thing you genuinely cannot differentiate on the fly.

The free techniques

These require no materials and no planning beyond deciding to do them. If you are doing none of them, start here before anything that involves preparing documents.

1Vary the questions, not the worksheet. Same text, but you ask the struggling student to find a fact and the confident one to explain why it matters.
2Vary what you expect back. Everyone writes about the reading; some produce three sentences and some produce a paragraph. Set the expectation individually, out loud.
3Pair deliberately. Who sits with whom is the most underused differentiation tool in any classroom, and it costs a seating plan.
4Offer the support, don't assign it. Word banks and sentence starters on the desk, available to anyone. Students select more accurately than you'd expect, and nobody is publicly labelled.

Differentiation is a set of decisions, not a set of documents. Most of it happens in how you respond to a student in the moment.

The expensive one

There is exactly one thing on the standard list that you cannot improvise: the text itself. A student who cannot read the passage cannot participate in the lesson, and no amount of skilled questioning fixes that once the material is in front of them.

This is why differentiation quietly collapses to "ask easier questions" in most classrooms. The one adjustment that would matter most is also the only one that costs real preparation time, so it is the one that gets dropped.

Costs nothing on the night

Questioning pitched per student
Deliberate pairing and grouping
Different expected output
Optional support on the desk

Costs an evening

Rewriting the text at three levels
Matching questions for each version
Vocabulary support per version
Doing it again next week for a new topic

New activity

Topic

Renewable energyReading Routine

10 levelsWriting ten levels…

A1A2B1B2C1C2

The expensive part — a topic written across every level — prepared in one step rather than three evenings.

What actually survives a term

Be honest about the difference between what works in a training session and what survives week nine. The test of a differentiation strategy is not whether it is effective — it is whether you are still doing it in November.

SurvivesOne differentiated element per lesson, chosen deliberately.

Abandoned by half-termA fully differentiated lesson plan for every session.

SurvivesSupport materials reused across topics.

Abandoned by half-termBespoke worksheets written for each week's text.

SurvivesGrouping that changes when you notice it should.

Abandoned by half-termFixed ability groups set in September and never revisited.

Removing the expensive part

The free techniques are yours — no software helps you pitch a question to a specific student. What Dily removes is the evening.

You give a topic and get the reading written across every level, with matched vocabulary support, comprehension questions and a writing prompt for each. Assign it to the class and every student opens the version pitched at them. The preparation cost is the same whether you are differentiating for two levels or ten.

The text is handled, so your attention goes to the questioning and grouping that only you can do.
It works for whatever topic the scheme of work reached, not just the ones you had time to prepare in advance.
Nothing on a student's screen indicates which version they received.

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