100+ Scaffolding Techniques and Strategies

The ability to read and understand complex, grade-level texts is an essential driver of success across the curriculum — not just in English language arts, but also in content areas such as science and social studies.

However, many students struggle to engage with these more challenging texts.

Scaffolding is a powerful instructional technique that can help students read and understand texts that otherwise may be too challenging. To help middle and high school educators incorporate scaffolding techniques into their daily instruction, we’ve gathered over 100 of our favorite scaffolding strategies into a single helpful guide.

Complete the form on this page to download your free copy of 100+ Scaffolding Strategies for Grade-Level Texts. In this scaffolding guide, you’ll find:

• Scaffolding strategies for developing vocabulary
• Scaffolding strategies for building background knowledge
• Scaffolding strategies for reading comprehension
• Scaffolding strategies for supporting multilingual learners

What Is Scaffolding in Education?

Just as construction scaffolding provides workers with additional support and safety as they build a new structure, instructional scaffolding provides students with additional support and safety as they build new skills.

Instructional scaffolding provides students with temporary support as they are learning and mastering new skills. As students grow stronger in the skill, the support can be lessened; once they have fully mastered the skill, the support can be removed entirely.

The goal of scaffolding is to empower students to engage in tasks that might be too challenging for them to complete independently. For example, instructional scaffolding can help students read and understand texts that they otherwise may not be able to fully comprehend.

Examples of Scaffolding in the Classroom

Examples of instructional scaffolding in the classroom include:

• Teacher-led instructional techniques and routines around key skills, such as explicitly teaching students how to recognize and understand different text structures
• Targeted practice activities that help reinforce new learning, such as concept mapping, summarizing, and think-pair-share activities
• Learning strategies that students can apply to enhance their own learning during small-group or independent work, such as rereading, annotating, or visualizing
• Instructional supports provided to students, such as dictionaries, glossaries, and graphic organizers

Scaffolding Strategies for Developing Vocabulary

When it comes to complex, grade-level texts, preteaching vocabulary can be an effective scaffolding teaching strategy. This prepares students to understand terms they will encounter when reading, ultimately supporting their overall reading comprehension.

Here are some scaffolding techniques you can use to reinforce and extend vocabulary:

1. Concept Mapping

Have students brainstorm words they already know that are related to a new vocabulary term. For example, words related to dessert might include sweet, sugar, bake, icing, cake, and candy.

2. Lexeme Mapping

Guide students to identify related forms of a new vocabulary word. For example, for motivate (verb), related forms might include motivator (noun), motivation (noun), motivating (adjective), and motivated (adjective). Discuss the meaning of each related form and how it relates to the original word.

Tip: Use a concept map or other graphic organizer for this activity.

3. Categorize by Parts of Speech

Have students sort new vocabulary terms according to their part of speech: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc. This activity can be done individually, in pairs, or in small groups, where students can discuss their reasoning for each categorization.

Tip: Remind students that some words (e.g., detour) may fit into more than one category. Have students discuss the differences and similarities in meaning (how does the noun detour differ in meaning from the verb detour — and how are they similar?).

4. Four Corners

Get students up and moving with this activity! Label four corners of the room A, B, C, and D. One by one, display and/or read aloud a multiple-choice question and its four response choices. Have students move to the corner of the room that represents the answer they believe is correct. Once in their corner, students should discuss why they chose that response. Give students the opportunity to change their minds and move to another corner before revealing the correct answer.

This is a great way to elevate a simple multiple-choice question into a higher-order thinking task, as students will need to explain and defend their answers collaboratively.

5. Collocations

Collocations are groups of words that are commonly used together, especially in contrast to other possible combinations. They help make speech and writing sound more natural. For example, most English speakers would say “heavy rain” as opposed to “strong rain,” “quick rain,” “thick rain,” or “fast rain.”

When teaching new vocabulary terms, be sure to introduce any collocations that may use those terms. This will especially help multilingual learners use their new vocabulary more naturally and effectively, and will tee them up to better understand when they see or hear vocabulary terms as part of a collocation.

Looking for more scaffolding techniques for developing vocabulary? Complete the form at the top of this page for the full scaffolding guide, including 20+ scaffolding strategies for vocabulary.

Scaffolding Techniques for Building Background Knowledge

When a student has background knowledge on a topic, they are often better able to read complex, grade-level texts about that topic. Scaffolding techniques for background knowledge involve activating students’ prior knowledge and building new background knowledge.

Here are some instructional scaffolding strategies you can use to activate and build background knowledge:

1. Text-to-World Connections

Helping students to see their personal connections with the theme or topic of a text can be an effective way to activate prior knowledge, especially with multilingual learners. Having a personal connection with a text can also increase motivation to persevere with more challenging texts or passages.

• Can you tell me about a time when you completed a big project or difficult task? How did you feel? What did you do?
• Have you ever been to a celebration? What was being celebrated?
• How do you like to celebrate your accomplishments? What special things might you want to do?
• How do your friends or family celebrate their accomplishments? Do they celebrate in the same way you do, or do they choose different activities for their celebrations?

2. Cover Discussions

Show students the cover of the text they’re about to read, then ask them questions about the cover to activate their prior knowledge. Questions might include:

• What do you think the book is about?
• What does the title tell you about the book?
• What does the cover image tell you about the book?
• Based on the cover, do you think this book will be fiction or nonfiction?
• Describe what you see on the cover.
• Based on the cover, when does this story take place? What details led you to that conclusion?
• If there are characters shown on the cover: Describe the individuals on the cover. What are they doing? What do you think their relationship with each other is?

3. Anticipation Guide

Another way to activate prior knowledge is to create an anticipation guide for the text. This is a handout that has multiple statements about key ideas in the text — some true and some false. Next to each statement, provide “Agree” and “Disagree” options that students can circle or highlight to indicate how they feel about the statement.

Read each statement one by one, and then have students discuss whether they agree or disagree. Encourage students to explain their reasoning or justifications for their opinion. Focus the discussion not on the “right answer,” but rather on having students share what they know and have personally experienced.

Tip: After students have read the text, have them revisit their anticipation guide. Ask students if their opinion has changed. Ask them to identify passages in the text that either supported their original opinion or caused their opinion to change.

4. Pre-Read an Anchor Text

When students are reading multiple texts on a topic, it can be helpful to start with an “anchor text.” This is a foundational grade-level text that helps provide all students with a baseline level of knowledge about a particular topic.

Have students read the anchor text prior to reading additional complex texts and encourage students to return to this text as they gain additional knowledge on the topic. This will help students learn to study a topic as a whole rather than individual texts in isolation.

5. Build New Experiences

Sometimes, the best way to learn is through doing! Giving students new experiences can be a powerful way to build background knowledge, especially for science and social studies topics.

Here’s an example of how you could use learning experiences as scaffolding strategies during a science lesson:

Before reading a science text about waterways and wetlands, have students construct different types of waterways in large plastic bins: a deep and straight river with a smooth bottom, a shallow and winding stream with a sandy bottom marsh filled with dense vegetation, and more. Use rocks, sand, sticks, and sponges (to represent aquatic plants). Once constructed, pour water into one corner of the bin and have students observe how the water moves through each model.

Then, have students discuss what they have observed:

• How quickly does the water move through each bin?
• Did it move at different speeds through different environments?
• How might that affect flooding in nearby areas?
• What have students learned that they should keep in mind as they read?

Looking for more scaffolding techniques for building background knowledge? Complete the form at the top of this page for the full scaffolding guide, including our 12 favorite scaffolding strategies for building background knowledge.

Scaffolding Strategies for Reading Comprehension

Decoding skills, vocabulary, and background knowledge all contribute to comprehension. However, they do not guarantee comprehension. Especially with complex, grade-level texts, students may need additional comprehension strategies and instructional scaffolding to deepen their understanding.

Here are some instructional scaffolding techniques you can use to strengthen students’ reading comprehension:

1. Before Reading: Preview Text Features

Many texts, especially nonfiction texts, will include key information within text features. Before students engage with a text that contains text features, consider:

• Explicitly previewing each type of text feature that students will encounter
• Modeling how to read the text feature, including how to locate where information is contained within the text feature
• Explaining what kind of information is most often provided by that type of text feature

Common text features include:

• Captions
• Diagrams
• Headings
• Illustrations
• Photographs
• Maps

2. During Reading: Ask Questions

One way that students can check their own comprehension as they read is by asking themselves questions such as: Who? What? When? Where? How? Why? For example, while reading about a historical figure, students can ask themselves:

• Who is the text about?
• What did that person do?
• When did this happen (time of day, time in history, etc.)?
• Where did this happen (location within a building, city, country, planet, etc.)?
• How did the person go about their actions?
• Why did the person take those actions?

3. During Reading: Think, Pair, Share

Asking questions can also be accomplished in a “Think, Pair, Share” model with a reading partner or small group who are all reading the same text. First, students think individually about the text or passage they have read. What questions can they answer about the text, and what questions do they still have about the text? Next, they pair with another student to discuss the text. Finally, the pair shares their thoughts about the text with the rest of the class.

Tip: To help guide “Think, Pair, Share” activities, present the class with one or two questions for them to discuss and answer.

4. Understanding Vocabulary: Use Context Clues

Learning how to use context clues to determine the meaning of a new word or term is a powerful strategy for improving reading comprehension. Remind students that:

• Authors often give hints to help define new or difficult words. These hints can also be called context clues.
• Context clues can come before or after an unfamiliar word.
• Sometimes context clues are in the same sentence as the unfamiliar word, and sometimes they are in a different sentence or paragraph.
• Context clues can be synonyms, antonyms, examples, or explanations.
• Sometimes images (such as photographs or illustrations) can contain context clues.

Explicitly model how to use context clues to determine the meaning of an unfamiliar word.

5. After Reading: Cite Evidence

Present a statement to the class based on the complex text they just read. Working individually or in pairs, ask students to find passage(s) in the text that support the statement.

Looking for more scaffolding techniques for strengthening reading comprehension? Complete the form at the top of this page for the full scaffolding guide, including 30+ scaffolding strategies for reading comprehension.

Scaffolding Techniques to Support Multilingual Learners

Multilingual learners often have unique learning needs, which can make certain scaffolding techniques more effective when supporting these students’ engagement with complex, grade-level text.

Here are some instructional scaffolding strategies you can use to support multilingual learners in your classroom:

1. Clear, Comprehensible Input

Ensure your instructions to students are clear and comprehensible. Consider incorporating these key elements when assigning tasks to students:

• Providing written instructions and work samples
• Modeling what students are going to do
• Have students restate what they are supposed to do in their own words

2. Language Conventions

While some students will pick up on common language conventions “organically,” many students — especially multilingual learners — will benefit from clear, explicit instruction in language conventions such as:

• Capitalization of names, titles, and places (which can help students to more easily identify characters and locations when reading)
• Punctuation that indicates dialogue (which can help students to more easily differentiate between narrative and dialogue text)
• Verb tenses (which can help students determine if action is happening now, if it happened in the past, or if a character is theorizing about the future)

Tip: Remember that capitalization rules are different in different languages. When students are learning English, they are adding on a new language — not replacing their home language! Don’t present capitalization rules as universally “right” or “wrong.” Rather, emphasize that different languages have different rules, and it’s important to use English rules when writing in English.

3. Sentence Frames

Providing sentence frames, statements, and questions can help all students participate in a healthy, collaborative discussion. Sentence frames can be especially helpful for multilingual learners who may need additional support for articulating their thoughts in English. In addition, these resources can help all students learn common conventions for respectful conversation, especially when their opinion may differ from another speaker’s point of view.

Download the full guide for a list of helpful sentence frames for middle and high school students.

4. Work Samples

When an activity is designed to culminate in a specific outcome (especially in terms of written work), it can be very helpful to provide multilingual learners with a sample of completed work to help set expectations and guide their efforts.

The work sample does not need to be an “answer key,” but could be the outcome of a similar activity on a different theme or topic. For example, if students are tasked with writing a summary of a chapter, the work sample could be a summary of an earlier chapter in the book.

5. Identify Cognates

During vocabulary lessons or activities, be sure to identify any cognates that may exist between the new vocabulary term in English and the same term in the student’s home language.

Examples of cognates include doctor (English) and docteur (French), garden (English) and Garten (German), cotton (English) and qutn (Arabic), and adventure (English) and aventura (Spanish).

Tip: Be sure to point out false cognates as well, like ropa in Spanish – which means clothing, not rope, in English!

Looking for more scaffolding techniques for supporting multilingual learners? Complete the form at the top of this page for the full scaffolding guide, including 30+ scaffolding strategies for supporting multilingual learners.

More Ways to Support & Grow Student Achievement

Need more than scaffolding techniques to support your students’ learning?

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