Analysis Of Scaffolding Literacy

Scaffolding Literacy: A Discursive Essay

Scaffolding Literacy is based on the concept of creating a high support/high challenge curriculum (Axford, Harders, & Wise, 2009; Gibbons & Hammond, 2001). It was developed by Brian Gray and colleagues as a literacy pedagogy that caters to all student levels by providing an appropriate level of difficulty for high achieving students and giving support necessary to others (Gray & Cowey, 2005). As the name suggests, Scaffolding Literacy focuses on facilitating students while they work through a structured framework designed to assist students in their use and understanding of literate texts (Axford et al., 2009). In this essay the sequence of Scaffolding Literacy will be described along with a review of the literature on Scaffolding Literacy. In addition, a description

The small class consisted of five students from very diverse backgrounds. The students and teacher were working through the Language Orientation stage of the sequence using the book The Tin Forest by Helen Ward. Most of the students were unengaged with the lesson initially but when called to answer a question they would do so. However, as the lesson progressed the students began to engage of their own accord. The lesson consisted of the students participating in a teacher led oral retell of the Language Orientation in order for the teacher to judge their understanding of the previous lesson. While this was not a specific stage in the Scaffolding Literacy sequence it was a modification the teacher made in order to allow her specific group of students engage more effectively. Students were encouraged to use metalanguage in order to describe the sentence they were analysing. Describing the features of the sentence allowed the students to apply their knowledge and give valuable practice for what is deemed a socially necessary area of literacy (Winch & Blaxell,