Supporting Struggling Readers With Scaffolds

This blog article is part one in a four-part series where we unlock success by supporting struggling readers with scaffolds.

As school district leaders, one of our main responsibilities is to make sure all students get the help they need to do well in school. For students who have difficulty reading, one way to help them catch up is by providing them with one-on-one or small group reading intervention. But it’s also essential to make sure they get the right kind of help.

What are instructional scaffolds?

Scaffolding during instruction and practice isn’t a new concept. Simply put, they’re tools and strategies that help students work through challenging tasks or concepts by breaking them down into more manageable steps. These scaffolds can take many forms, from graphic organizers and sentence starters to peer collaboration and explicit instruction.

The goal of instructional scaffolding is to provide just enough support to help students achieve success without making the task too easy or removing the challenge altogether. This can help build students’ confidence and motivation while also improving their skills and knowledge. Of course, it might come as no surprise to know using scaffolds is a highly-individualized technique, as no two students will have the same needs. 

In the context of one-to-one or small group reading intervention, instructional scaffolding can be especially important. Reading is a complex skill that requires a range of cognitive processes, including decoding, fluency, comprehension, and critical thinking. For struggling readers, any one of these processes can present a significant challenge. By providing targeted scaffolds for each process, we can help students build the skills they need to become proficient readers.

Do instructional scaffolds really work for struggling readers?

The research overwhelmingly backs up the case for using instructional scaffolds for students in a variety of scenarios. The following are just a few of the many studies that support using scaffolds during reading instruction. 

• One study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology found that using a combination of explicit instruction and graphic organizers helped struggling readers improve their comprehension of expository texts (Deshler et al., 2011). The researchers concluded that using scaffolds helped students connect the text and their prior knowledge, improving their comprehension.
• Another study published in the Journal of Literacy Research found that providing students with sentence starters and prompts helped them write more complex and sophisticated sentences (Gillespie & Graham, 2010). The researchers noted that scaffolds like sentence starters helped students bridge the gap between their current level of writing proficiency and the more advanced skills they were striving to develop.
• A third study published in the Journal of Learning Disabilities found that providing explicit phonics instruction and practice with word families helped struggling readers improve their decoding skills (Kim et al., 2018). The researchers noted that scaffolding the phonics instruction allowed students to make incremental progress and build confidence as they mastered each new skill.

What are some simple examples of instructional scaffolds we’re likely already using?

1. Phonics instruction: For students who struggle with decoding, explicit phonics instruction can be an effective scaffold. This might include activities like word sorts, where students group words based on their phonetic patterns, or phonics games that reinforce specific letter-sound correspondences.
2. Visual aids: Graphic organizers, charts, and diagrams can be powerful tools for supporting comprehension. For example, a concept map might help students organize their thoughts about a complex text, while a plot diagram could help them track the events in a story.
3. Think-alouds: When teachers model their thinking processes aloud, they can help students develop their metacognitive skills. Think-alouds involve making predictions about a text, asking questions, or connecting the text and the student’s prior knowledge.
4. Meaningful practice: By working with students in small groups or one-on-one, teachers can provide targeted support and feedback that helps students build their skills and confidence. This might involve providing prompts.

By providing targeted support that meets the individual needs of each student, instructors can help struggling readers build the skills and confidence they need to become proficient readers.

Read more about instructional scaffolds:

6 Effective Scaffolding Ideas for Struggling Readers