| Diversity is the cornerstone of the modern English classroom. Therefore, the differentiated instruction (DI), has become increasingly important in English language teaching to young learners. We perceive the differences in their preknowledge, understanding, skills, interests, learning profiles and other factors, which teachers must consider when planning DI.
The principal aim of this article is to gain an insight into the basis on which teachers´ planning DI in Slovenia is based. The article investigates if and how these differences are seen by the authors of the curricula and the learning materials and how they are reflected in the lesson plans written by the publishing companies.
In the empirical part, the descriptive method was used to present the research based on the material resources: English curricula, textbooks, workbooks, and exercise collections for English language teaching from the 1st to the 5th grade.
The results reveal that the authors of the English curricula are aware of the individual differences among students. They have demonstrated them by writing down the standards, the minimum standards and a didactic recommendation in which the individualization and differentiation are mentioned. By analysing the learning materials, we found out that teachers, based on students' readiness and learning profile, almost equally often differentiate learning content and process. They do not differentiate the products. Most of the material is differentiated by difficulty, more than half by meaningfulness, some by flexibility and diversity, and rarely by thoroughness.
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