Scaffolding

SCAFFOLDING READING EXPERIENCES FOR MULTILINGUAL CLASSROOMS (SRE)

 by Michael F. Graves and Jill Fitzgerald

Chapter 5

The article starts by stating that thousands of teachers in the US and other countries teach in classes where students have different language background, language skills, and different reading proficiency. We find this diversity even more when we teach a multilingual class.  The approach described in the article addresses only to one aspect of reading instruction. What is important is for children to have a successful reading experience. According to Graves and Fitzgerald “it is important that children understand what they read, enjoy the experience of reading, learn from what they read” (2002:96)*.

In this particular chapter, it is discussed one approach to assisting students in multilingual classrooms to read, understand, learn from and enjoy, that is, the scaffolding experience. This term was first used by Wood, Bruner, and Ros (1976) to characterise mothers’ verbal interaction when reading to their young children.  It basically consists of a process that enables the child to solve a problem or task, or even achieve a goal, which could be beyond his/her capability. Of course, it is a temporary support which enables the accomplishment of a task.

There are 3 attributes which are highly related to the scaffolding technique:

•          The scaffold itself: the temporary and supportive structure.
•          Vygotsky’s term (1978): Zone of Proximal Development.
•       Teachers must gradually dismantle their support and transfer the responsibility to complete tasks to the student. It is through this gradual process that students become more competent and independent learners.

In the SRE framework we find 4 main factors to bear in mind: the characteristics of the learner, the nature of the materials, the learning activities, and the criterial tasks. We also find two different phases – the planning and the implementation –. The planning phase consists of the creation of a particular situation with a particular reading experience. It must take into account the students, the reading selection, and the reading purpose.

The implementation phase compiles a set of pre-reading, during-reading, and post-reading activities. The pre-reading tasks serve to get students interested in the topic, to remind them of things they already know, or basically pre-teaching new content, such as vocabulary or expressions. These activities are really important, especially for those whose L1 is not English and might not be familiar with certain topics. The during-activities serve to make them focus on particular pieces of information. And finally, the post-activities they provide opportunities for students to synthesize and organize information learned from reading a text and to recall and understand important details.

Here we find a list with possible activities for each group:

As a conclusion, scaffolding is a kind of lesson plan that relies heavily on the concept of scaffolding –having a temporary, supportive figure in the learning process –. The reading experience must be successful and rewarding. The goal of scaffolding is for students to become independent and lifelong readers. 

*Graves, M. F., & Fitzgerald, J. (2002). Scaffolding Reading Experiences for Multilingual Classrooms. In Garcia, G. G. (Ed.), English Learners: Reaching the Highest Level of English Literacy (pp. 96-104). Newark: International Reading Association.