- Providing students with language models, such as sentence frames and starters, academic
vocabulary walls, language frame charts, exemplary writing samples, or teacher language
modeling (e.g., using academic vocabulary or phrasing)
This planned scaffolding in turn allows teachers to provide just-in-time scaffolding during
instruction, which flexibly attends to students’ needs. This type of scaffolding occurs when teachers
employ in-the-moment formative assessment, closely observing students’ responses to instruction and
providing support as needed. Examples of this type of scaffolding include the following: - Prompting a student to elaborate on a response in order to clarify thinking or to extend his or
her language use - Paraphrasing a student’s response and including target academic language as a model while
also accepting the use of everyday language or nonstandard varieties of English - Adjusting instruction on the spot based on frequent checking for understanding
- Linking what a student is saying to prior knowledge or to learning to come (previewing)
While scaffolding is an important notion for all
students, the CA ELD Standards provide general guidance
on levels of scaffolding for ELs at different English
language proficiency levels. In the CA ELD Standards, the
three overall levels of scaffolding that teachers provide
to ELs during instruction are substantial, moderate, and
light. English Learners at the Emerging level of English
language proficiency generally require more substantial
support to develop capacity for many academic tasks than
do students at the Bridging level. This does not mean that
these students always require substantial/moderate/light
scaffolding for every task. English learners at every level
of English language proficiency engage in some academic
tasks that require light or no scaffolding because students
have already mastered the requisite skills for the given
tasks; similarly students engage in some academic tasks
that require moderate or substantial scaffolding because they have not yet acquired the cognitive
or linguistic skills required by the tasks. For example, when a challenging academic task requires
students to extend their thinking and stretch their language, students at Expanding and Bridging
levels of English language proficiency may also require substantial support. Teachers need to provide
the level of scaffolding appropriate for specific tasks and learners’ cognitive and linguistic needs, and
students require more or less support depending on these and other variables.
Since scaffolding is intended to be temporary, the gradual release of responsibility is one way
to conceptualize the move from heavily scaffolded instruction to practice and application in which
students are increasingly independent. As described by Pearson and Gallagher (1983), the process
focuses on the “differing proportions of teacher and student responsibility” for successful task
completion. “When the teacher is taking all or most of the responsibility for task completion, he [or
she] is ‘modeling’ or demonstrating the desired application of some strategy. When the student is
taking all or most of that responsibility, [he or] she is ‘practicing’ or ‘applying’ that strategy. What
comes in between these two extremes is the gradual release of responsibility from teacher to student,
or what Rosenshine might call ‘guided practice’” (Pearson and Gallagher 1983, 330). Duke, and others
(2011) update this definition by identifying five stages of gradual release of responsibility in reading
comprehension instruction:
While scaffolding is an important
notion for all students, the CA
ELD Standards provide general
guidance on levels of scaffolding
for ELs at different English
language proficiency levels. In
the CA ELD Standards, the three
overall levels of scaffolding that
teachers provide to ELs during
instruction are substantial,
moderate, and light.Essential Considerations Chapter 2 | 101