13 Strategies to Ensure Strong Scaffolding Lloyd, J.W., Kameanui, E.J., and Chard, D. (Eds.) (1997)

1.Provide Procedural Prompts Specific to the Strategy Being Taught - provide specific ideas for completing the task - name the skill - develop prompts that support the task ( e.g., Who? Where? When? Why? What? How? question starters for comprehension tasks)

2. Teach the Strategy Using Small Steps. -deconstruct each learning expectation to identify the sub- skills imbedded in it - teach the sub-skills in a logical order to “build” the larger skill

3. Provide Models of the Appropriate Responses. - models provide an important scaffold; modeling enables students to compare their efforts with that of an expert - modeling can take place during initial instruction ( Direct/ Explicit Instruction) - modeling can take place during practice ( Cooperative Learning, Activity Centers, Contract Learning) - modeling can be given after practice ( Discovery Learning)

4. Think Aloud as Choices are Being Made - think aloud strategies make expert thinking overt - part of cognitive apprenticeship model ( Collins, Brown, and Newman, 1990) - think aloud strategies can be used to: a) clarify difficult statements or concepts b) summarize important information c) help students think ahead

5. Anticipate and Discuss Potential Difficulties - spend instructional time discussing and explaining potential difficulties before students start practice - use poor examples to help students analyze why they are poor

6. Regulate the Difficulty of the Material - apply the new learning to small examples first, then move toward incrementally larger ones ( e.g., analyze a sentence, then a paragraph, then a story) - decrease the prompts and supports strategically as students become more comfortable with the material ( “gradual release of responsibility”)

7. Provide a Cue Card - cue procedural prompts ( e.g., generic questions such as “ What is the most important idea in this paragraph?”) - use anchor charts

8. Guide Student Practice ( 3 forms) 1 st. - during initial practice, provide hints, reminders of prompts, review of anchor charts, suggestions for something that could be improved - intersperse new material with lots of practice episodes of the incremental bits

2 nd. - Use reciprocal teaching; as learning becomes more solidified, support “fades” or “responsibility for learning is gradually released” - Students move from being supported by the teacher to supporting each other - Students take a more active role in ensuring that they have learned

3 rd. - Students meet in small groups of 2 to 6 - They practice asking, revising, correcting, and providing support and feedback to each other (e.g., groups of 6, then 2, then alone) - Teacher uses diminishing support ( “gradual release of responsibility”) strategically

9. Provide Feedback and Corrections - Teacher makes strategic use of all forms of feedback available ( teacher, other students, computer programs) - Feedback takes many forms ( hints, questions, and suggestions). - Group feedback opportunities are provided

10. Provide and Teach a Checklist - self- evaluation is used - teach students to ask themselves “ What do I still not understand?” to help them become reflective about their level of understanding. - checklists are effective at any point in the instructional cycle ( before, during and/or after practice opportunities)

11. Provide Independent Practice with New Examples - work toward having students develop automatic responses ( automaticity) - provide practice with a variety of material so that students can see the transfer of the learning - facilitate transfer of new learning across contexts and content areas.

12. Increase Student Responsibilities - scaffolds are diminished after successful independent practice - students responsibilities are correspondingly increased - complexity and difficulty of the material is gradually increased

13. Assess Student Mastery - assess learning - use a variety of strategies to assess - re-teach when/if necessary