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talk with students, when they work with groups, and when they hold class discussions.
Fading scaffolding. Fading scaffolding refers to gradually removing the scaffolding so that
students are executing the strategy more and more on their own (A. Collins et al., 1989). The goal of
scaffolding is to help students complete tasks successfully that they cannot complete without assistance.
But as students become better able to carry out tasks on their own, they will reach a point where they do
less scaffolding. Teachers give less and less scaffolding over time, until students are proficient enough at
using the strategy that they do not need any scaffolding at all. The goal is for students to become
independent, self-regulated users of strategies who can use the strategies without scaffolding. When
teachers fade scaffolding, students learn more than when they do not fade scaffolding (McNeill, Lizotte,
Krajcik, & Marx, 2006).
As students master one strategy, teachers can introduce a new strategy, for which scaffolding will be
again needed for a period of time until students master that more difficult task. At any one time, teachers
are providing high levels of scaffolding for some strategies, fading scaffolding for other strategies, and
giving no scaffolding at all for strategies that students have mastered.
Incorporating Effective Motivational Techniques
The final feature of effective strategy instruction is the incorporation of effective motivational
techniques. There is evidence that strategy instruction is more effective when it is integrated with
instruction that incorporates a variety of effective techniques for enhancing students’ motivation (Guthrie et
al., 2004).
Educational psychologist John Guthrie and his colleagues (Guthrie et al., 2004) compared three
forms of instruction to promote third graders’ reading proficiency. In one condition, teachers used their
traditional methods of reading instruction. In a second condition, teachers provided strategy instruction
using many of the techniques that we have already discussed in this chapter—including explaining the
strategy to students, modeling, and giving them varied practice. In a third condition, strategy instruction
was integrated within reading instruction that incorporated five important techniques to enhance students’
motivation.
Ɣ The teacher emphasized content learning goals. This consisted in part of setting questions that students
should find the answers to while they are reading. Goals of understanding content were emphasized, and
performance goals, such as performing well on tests, were deemphasized. As we learned in Chapter 10,
learning goals tend to support deep learning more than performance goals do.
Ɣ Providing choice and support for autonomy. Students were allowed to choose texts, what to respond to,
and partners during instruction. Choice is, as we learned in Chapter 10, intrinsically motivating
according to self-determination theorists.
Ɣ Using interesting texts. This was accomplished by giving students opportunities to read texts that they
found situationally interesting, that were relevant to their other interests and goals, and that were
visually appealing in their format. Interesting texts enhance the value of the goal of learning from these
texts.
Ɣ Social collaboration. Many of the reading activities engaged students in group work to achieve joint
goals. This also creates situational interest in the reading task, and it also allows students to learn from
each other.
Ɣ Incorporating hands-on experiences into the text. For instance, students combined reading aloud with
hands-on activities such as dissecting owl pellets to see what owls had eaten.
Guthrie and his colleagues found that students who learned through strategy instruction integrated
with motivating reading instruction gained more in reading proficiency than students in the other two
conditions. In fact, strategy instruction was not effective without the motivational components of
instruction. This important study supports the conclusion that strategy instruction is most effective when it
is integrated with instruction that is designed to enhance motivation.