Scaffolding Strategies To Use With Your Students

Lev Vygotsky Scaffolding Strategies

Scaffolding

• Definition• Strategies• Who is Lev Vygotsky?• Lev Vygotsky scaffolding strategies• How we can apply it in the class

What does scaffolding mean?

• In general: it is a kind of assistance or help offered by a teacher or peer to support learning.

• it is an instructional technique whereby the teacher models the desired learning strategy or task, then gradually shifts the responsibility to the students.

• We can call it a supporting framework

Scaffolding Strategies• Visuals and realia• Modeling /gesturing• Graphic organizers• Connect to background knowledge• Sentence structures /starters• Read aloud• Intentional small group /partner work• Use of first language• Give time to talk• Pause, ask questions, review

Who is Lev Vygotsky?

• He was born in western Russia.• He has written several articles & books on the subject of his

theories.• His research in how children solve their problems that

surpassed their level of development; led him to create the zone of proximal development theory (ZPD).

Lev Vygotsky scaffolding theory:

• Vygotsky believed that when a student is in the ZPD for a particular task, by providing the appropriate assistance will give the student enough of a boost to achieve the task.

• The ZPD has become synonymous in the literature with the term scaffolding.

• However it is important to note that Vygotsky never used the term of “scaffolding” in his writing and it was introduced by WOOD ET AL(1976).

• In order to meet students where they are and scaffold a lesson or differentiate instruction, you have to know the individual & collective ZPD of your learners.

• The ZPD is the distance between what children can do by themselves & the next learning that they can be helped to achieve with competent assistance.

• Vygotsky suggested that teachers use cooperative learning exercises where less component children develop with help from more skillful peers within the zone of proximal development.

• According to Vygotsky, language( in particular speech) is fundamental to children’s cognitive growth because language provides purpose and intention so that behaviors can be better understood.

• Through the use of speech, children are able to communicate and learn from others through dialogue; which is an important tool in the ZPD.

• In it child’s unsystematic, disorganized, and spontaneous concepts are met with the more systematic, logic, and rational concepts of the skilled helper.

A reading text

• What should happen before, during, and after reading?Before reading:• Teach the pronunciation of difficult words.• Teach the meaning of critical, unknown words.• Teach or activate any necessary background knowledge.• Preview the story or the article.During reading:• Utilize passage reading procedures that provide adequate reading

practice.• Ask appropriate questions during passage reading.• Teach strategies that can be applied to passage reading.• Use graphic organizers to enhance comprehension.

After reading:• Provide intentional fluency building practice.• Engage students in a discussion.• Have students answer written questions.• Provide engaging vocabulary practice.• Have students write summaries of what they have read.