Scaffolding That Sticks: 4 Steps to Support Student Learning

Hey there, teachers! Welcome back to The Stellar Teacher Podcast.

So let me start off with this question: have you ever taught a lesson where you felt like you modeled it perfectly, only to watch your students sit there with blank stares when it was their turn to practice? It’s like they were completely absent during the part of the lesson where you showed them exactly what to do.

If so, you’re probably wondering what was wrong with your modeling. Maybe you’re thinking, “Okay, maybe I wasn’t explicit enough. Maybe I didn’t model enough examples. Maybe I rushed through it.”

Well, the truth is, there might not be anything wrong with your modeling. But what might be happening is that you’re skipping a few important scaffolds that are needed before students are ready to jump into independent practice.

Scaffolding really matters—a lot. I think that’s because student struggles often boil down to one of two things: either we didn’t provide enough scaffolds, or we removed them too quickly.

And I think it’s easy to understand why when we think about the entire scaffolding process. Ultimately, we want our students to become independent learners. But sometimes, we rush that process. We expect that students are able to leap from watching us do something once to being able to completely do it on their own—and that leap is often too big or too wide for our students to make.

If we think about it, scaffolds are the bridge that helps students cross that leap. They’re the gradual supports that help students go from just hearing about a concept to actually mastering it on their own—independently, in any context.

So let’s talk about the four steps to effective scaffolding.

The first step to effective scaffolding is to model and explicitly teach. This is the part of scaffolding that most of us already do. It comes up a lot in education, right? We know that we want to model. We want to make our thinking visible. We show students how to do a task, how to break it down step by step. We do think-alouds.

But this step by itself is often not enough to get students all the way to self-directed learning.

Sometimes we go straight from modeling to, “Okay, now do this on your own,” which is why the next two steps of effective scaffolding are so important.

The next step is to approximate or mimic.

This is one that we often skip, and I think it’s because there’s this idea that we don’t want students copying what we are doing—because we think if they’re copying, they’re not learning.

We’ve actually heard this a lot from teachers, especially when they’re teaching writing. They’ll say things like, “When I model, my students just copy the examples that I show them,” and they think that by copying, their students aren’t actually learning.

But think of approximation like practice with training wheels. Students are trying out the skill, but they’re leaning on what they just saw. They might mimic your exact sentence structure, your exact graphic organizer, or even your word choice—and that’s okay!

Because this is just the first step. This is the first time they’re trying something new and getting practice with it. This is where they start to internalize what you taught.

And remember, the goal of scaffolds is to eventually remove them. So just because a student mimics you during a single lesson, that doesn’t mean they aren’t learning or that they’ll always be copying what they see.

This is just the next step in the learning process.

So the third step to providing effective scaffolds is to fade away.

This happens once students have had time to approximate. You begin to slowly reduce the support, right? We make it more challenging for them to approximate, and we start to encourage more original thinking on their own.

Maybe you stop giving them full examples and instead start asking guiding questions. Maybe you have students work with a partner, or you provide them with a reference sheet, an anchor chart, or some sort of support—but it’s less than before. It’s not as specific as a direct model. You’re still supporting, but it’s lighter now.

This is really the gradual release that sets them up for the final step, which is self-directed learning or independence. That’s the ultimate goal of our instruction.

But this is something we can usually only get to after students have had plenty of support with the previous scaffolds in place.

When students reach this point, that’s when they can apply the skill in a new context independently—because you’ve built the foundation that made it possible. Students have truly internalized the learning. They don’t need support, prompting, or guidance. They can do it all on their own.

Now, something I think is really important to keep in mind is that even though there are four steps to effective scaffolding—modeling, approximation, fading away, and self-directed learning—it isn’t necessarily linear. It’s more fluid.

We’re not always going through all four steps in a single lesson. Maybe you spend quite a bit of time on approximation and fading away before you move on to self-directed learning. Or maybe you’re at the fade-away phase and realize your students are missing a key step—so you go back to modeling.

The other thing to remember is that we don’t have to go through all four scaffolds in every single lesson. Scaffolds can be added in or taken away throughout the year, depending on your students’ needs.

I’ll give you an example of what that might look like in just a minute so you can get a better idea of what these steps look like in practice.

But first, I want to take a minute to talk about what happens if we skip those middle two scaffolds. Right? What happens if we jump straight from modeling to independent work?

And if I think back to when I was in the classroom—I know I definitely did that. I’d model, and then I’d say, “Okay, now you do this on your own.” And I forgot about those middle two steps.

But when we do that, we might be setting our students up to struggle—at least some of them. That’s because they haven’t had any reps. They haven’t had any practice. They haven’t internalized the structure. They’re simply trying to perform a skill they haven’t had the chance to build yet.

The result? Confusion, frustration, avoidance, or even learned helplessness.

And when we see those things in our students, it’s probably not because they’re lazy or incapable. It might actually be because we removed the scaffolds too soon—or we didn’t put enough scaffolds in place to begin with.

Like I mentioned earlier, we often skip the approximation or the fading-away phases—and when that happens, our students might not be set up for success.

So let me give you an example of what these scaffolds could look like in your classroom.

Let’s say you’re teaching paragraph writing, which is probably something you’re all doing in your upper elementary classroom. Now, keep in mind that the end goal is for students to write strong, independent paragraphs on their own. But that doesn’t mean they need to be independent right away.

After your very first lesson, we can and should move through the scaffolds gradually over the course of several lessons. Here’s what that might look like.

Maybe you kick things off by writing a full paragraph in front of your students. You’re modeling your thinking out loud. You’re labeling each part of the paragraph, identifying the topic sentence, the supporting details, and the closing. You’re modeling the entire writing process, making it visible, and explaining why you’re doing certain things.

That alone could be a full lesson. Your goal here is simply to help students understand what a paragraph is and how all the parts work together. It’s just a model.

Now, we know that modeling isn’t enough, so we want to give students a chance to put pencil to paper. In the next lesson, you might zoom in and focus only on writing a topic sentence.

So now we’re going to think about putting all of the scaffolds in place just for the topic sentence. You would model writing a topic sentence, and then have your students try writing one themselves.

This is where approximation can come in. The first time students do this during the year, give them the opportunity to mimic you. Let them copy your topic sentence exactly as it’s written, especially if they’re not ready to come up with their own yet.

Now, maybe that sounds counterintuitive, but it’s actually an important part of internalizing structure, especially in writing. When students mimic your writing, they’re practicing how to write a complete sentence. They’re learning how to write with correct sentence structure, and they’re beginning to understand what a clear topic sentence looks and sounds like.

Of course, if you have students who are ready to try writing a topic sentence on their own, they can, but giving everyone permission to mimic yours ensures that all students get the support they need at this stage.

Remember, we’re not trying to rush independence. We’ll get there. But for some students, they might need to mimic or approximate your writing as a first step.

Okay, so now that your students have had a chance to approximate, you can start to pull back some of that support. The next time you’re writing a paragraph together, instead of letting your students copy your topic sentence exactly, maybe you just offer them a sentence starter or a framework to follow—just enough guidance to help them generate their own idea.

You’re still supporting them, but it’s lighter now. Depending on your students, you might stay in this phase for a few rounds of paragraph writing—maybe two or three lessons, or even a few weeks—before they’re ready to move on. For some students, they might need a few weeks in the mimicking phase, copying your topic sentence. This is where you know your students best and can adjust the scaffolds to meet their needs.

Eventually, with enough practice and support, students will be ready to write a full paragraph completely on their own. You won’t need to provide a model, a sentence stem, or any kind of prompt. They’ll be able to write a strong topic sentence because they’ve had time to see it modeled, try it through approximation and mimicking, and practice it with just a little bit of support, all before being asked to do it independently.

And this is really what scaffolding looks like in action.

So often in education, we rush to independent learning. And while that’s our end goal, we want to set our students up for success. Putting scaffolds in place, one clear, supported step at a time, is one of the best ways to help our students truly be successful.

If you have students who are struggling right now, take a moment to ask yourself: have I given a clear model? Have I given my students a chance to mimic or approximate? Have I pulled back and faded away some of the support to help them experience a little more independence? And are they really ready for independent learning?

If the answer to that last question—are they ready for independent learning—is no, then go back and do more modeling, more approximating, and more fading away until they are ready.

A small shift in how you scaffold, or even just adding in more scaffolds, can lead to a big boost in student confidence, success, and independence.

And remember, you don’t have to do all four of these steps in the same lesson. They can be spread out over time.

Hopefully, this episode has given you some new ideas or encouraged you to think about how you’re scaffolding and supporting your students.

Of course, I would love to hear about it. And if you haven’t done so already, we’d love and appreciate it if you left a podcast review on Apple or Spotify to let us know what you thought about this episode.

As always, thank you for listening. The work you are doing truly matters. Your students are so lucky to have you, and I hope to see you back here next Monday.