6 Scaffolding Strategies to Use With Your Students ▬ Edutopia

6 Scaffolding Strategies to Use With Your Students

Scaffolding

Edutopia: 1.24.2014 by Rebecca Alber [orig: 5.24.2011]

What’s the opposite of scaffolding a lesson? Saying to students, “Read this nine-page science article, write a detailed essay on the topic it explores, and turn it in by Wednesday.” Yikes! No safety net, no parachute—they’re just left to their own devices.

Let’s start by agreeing that scaffolding a lesson and differentiating instruction are two different things. Scaffolding is breaking up the learning into chunks and providing a tool, or structure, with each chunk. When scaffolding reading, for example, you might preview the text and discuss key vocabulary, or chunk the text and then read and discuss as you go. With differentiation, you might give a child an entirely different piece of text to read, or shorten the text or alter it, or modify the writing assignment that follows.

Simply put, scaffolding is what you do first with kids. For those students who are still struggling, you may need to differentiate by modifying an assignment or making accommodations like choosing a more accessible text or assigning an alternative project.

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So let’s get to some scaffolding strategies you may or may not have tried yet. Or perhaps you’ve not used them in some time and need a gentle reminder on how awesome and helpful they can be when it comes to student learning.

1. SHOW AND TELL

How many of us say that we learn best by seeing something rather than hearing about it?

2. TAP INTO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Ask students to share their own experiences, hunches, and ideas about the content or concept of study and have them relate and connect it to their own lives.

3. GIVE TIME TO TALK

All learners need time to process new ideas and information.

4. PRE-TEACH VOCABULARY

Sometimes referred to as front-loading vocabulary, this is a strategy that we teachers don’t use enough.

5. USE VISUAL AIDS

Graphic organizers, pictures, and charts can all serve as scaffolding tools.

6. PAUSE, ASK QUESTIONS, PAUSE, REVIEW

This is a wonderful way to check for understanding while students read a chunk of difficult text or learn a new concept or content. READ MORE ➤➤

Automatic Readability Checker

Based on 7 readability formulas:

Grade Level: 10

Reading Level: fairly difficult to read.

Reader's Age: 14-15 yrs. old

(Ninth to Tenth graders)