International Journal of Educational Research 90 (2018) 177–190

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International Journal of Educational Research

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Examining the impact of scaffolding on literacy learning: A critical

T
examination of research and guidelines to advance inquiry
⁎
Katherine Brownfielda, , Ian A.G. Wilkinsonb
a
The Ohio State University, Upper Arlington Schools, 4301 Greensview Drive, Columbus, OH, 43220, USA
b
Department of Teaching and Learning, The Ohio State University, 200 Ramseyer Hall, 29 W. Woodruff Avenue, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA

AR TI CLE I NF O AB S T R A CT

Keywords: Despite its appeal and widespread use, the term scaffolding has been inconsistently invoked
Scaffolding across the field of education, particularly in literacy research. Indeed, its meaning has become so
Literacy broad that its impact on learning is unclear. This review elucidates the theoretical tenets that
Reading underpin the metaphor and critically examines the impact of scaffolding on literacy learning by
Writing
interrogating the existing literature in terms of its adherence to the theoretical tenets of the
construct and the methodology used to determine the relationship between teachers’ scaffolding
and students’ literacy learning. Guidelines for future research are offered to advance under-
standing of the role of scaffolding in literacy learning. In offering these guidelines, we endeavor
to adhere to the theoretical underpinnings of the concept and address methodological weaknesses
in extant empirical research.

Through interactions with students, teachers have the potential to bring even the youngest learners into new competencies in
reading, writing, and language (Cazden, 2005). It is well established that the quality of these interactions is important for shaping
student growth (Curby, Rimm-Kaufman, and Ponitz (2009); Maloch, 2002; Pianta, Belsky, Vandergrift, Houts, and Morrison (2008);
Rodgers, 2004), yet the precise nature of the interactions that foster learning remains elusive. One model of teacher-student inter-
action presumed to foster student growth is scaffolding. According to Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976), scsaffolding refers to the
process by which an adult or more expert other assists a child or novice to solve a problem or carry out a task, the result of which may
lead to “the development of task competence by the learner that would far outstrip his unassisted efforts” (p. 90). Since its origin in
the work of Wood et al., the metaphor of scaffolding has appealed to educators, psychologists, and researchers interested in learning
and development.
According to Palincsar (1998), the metaphor of scaffolding has garnered broad appeal because it captures multiple dimensions of
teaching and learning and describes “an instructional context that is at once supportive, flexible enough to accommodate individual
differences, and designed to cede increasing responsibility to the learner” (p. 373). Early studies of scaffolding examined activities in
informal contexts typical of Western culture, such as parent-child participation in a peekaboo game (e.g. Bruner & Sherwood, 1976)
or in construction of a puzzle (e.g., Wood et al., 1976; see Stone, 1998 for a review of early scaffolding research). In more recent
studies, the construct of scaffolding has been widely applied by researchers studying interactions in formal contexts such as class-
rooms, small groups, and one-to-one tutoring situations in social studies and math, as well as literacy.
Despite its appeal and widespread use, the term scaffolding has been inconsistently invoked in the field of education and in
literacy research in particular. Indeed, the meaning of the term has become so broad that its significance has become unclear (Pea,
2004; Sherin, Reiser, & Edelson, 2004; Stone, 2002). For example, in some recent applications, the construct of scaffolding has

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: brownfield.49@osu.edu (K. Brownfield), wilkinson.70@osu.edu (I.A.G. Wilkinson).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2018.01.004
Received 12 May 2017; Received in revised form 31 October 2017; Accepted 5 January 2018
Available online 07 February 2018
0883-0355/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
K. Brownfield, I.A.G. Wilkinson International Journal of Educational Research 90 (2018) 177–190

become synonymous with nearly any form of guidance or support (Elbers, Rojas-Drummond, & van de Pol, 2013; Puntambekar &
Hubscher, 2005; Stone, 2002). According to Jadallah, Anderson, Nguyen-Jahiel, and Miller (2011) and Puntambekar and Hubscher
(2005), the definitions of scaffolding in some recent studies have resulted in interpretations of the construct that are distant from its
original meaning and, because scholars have interpreted scaffolding differently, there is a lack of coherence in the field with regard to
the instructional implications of the concept. Further, ill-defined use of the term is problematic for practitioners who may conflate
scaffolding with any form of support.
Because of researchers’ overgeneralization of the term scaffolding in education, there is a need for conceptual clarity with regard
to the theoretical tenets underlying the metaphor. This is particularly true in the area of literacy learning, where scaffolding is often
taken up in practice, yet little is known about its impact on children’s literacy achievement. There is a need for a synthesis of existing
research on scaffolding in this context to assess where the field stands, and to provide guidelines for future research that advance
understanding of the role of scaffolding in children’s literacy learning and adhere to theoretical underpinnings of the concept.
The purpose of this paper is to examine research on scaffolding and literacy learning for children in grades pre-K through 12, and
to propose a way of studying scaffolding that is empirically and theoretically defensible. We identified literature for this review by
searching the ERIC and PsychINFO databases. For each database, we conducted separate searches using the keywords (1) ‘scaffold*’
AND ‘reading’; (2) ‘scaffold*’ AND ‘writing’; and (3) ‘scaffold*’ AND ‘literacy’. We limited our search to reports of empirical studies
conducted with students up to and including high school age and published in peer-reviewed journals. We then combined results of
our three searches. This resulted in a total of 157 articles from the ERIC search; and 218 from the PsychINFO search. We also scanned
references from documents retrieved to identify additional sources.
Because we sought to clarify how scaffolding might support children’s literacy learning, published work had to satisfy the fol-
lowing criteria to qualify for inclusion:

• pertain to literacy learning and/or teaching;

• center on children from pre-k to grade 12;
• focus on scaffolding as the topic of inquiry.
In total, 60 reports of empirical studies from our literature search met our criteria and were included in the present review.
We judged scaffolding to be the topic of inquiry if the authors investigated the construct of scaffolding and either made claims
about the nature of scaffolding, and/or reported findings on the impact of scaffolding on children’s learning. For example, Juel (1996)
studied the effectiveness of a one-to-one tutoring intervention in which first grade children were tutored in reading, writing, and
phonemic awareness by a university athlete twice a week for 45 min over the course of a school year. She characterized the inter-
actions in the most successful dyads as “scaffolded reading and writing experiences” (p. 283), and reported that scaffolding was a
component of effective tutoring. Because Juel drew a conclusion about scaffolding and her study took place in a pre-K through grade
12 literacy setting, her study met our criteria for inclusion. In contrast, a study by Woo, Chu, Ho and Li (2011) was excluded from our
review, for example, because it did not focus on scaffolding as the topic of inquiry. In this study, the authors examined the use of a
wiki as a scaffold for writing in a primary English-language class. The focus of inquiry was the wiki, not scaffolding, as conclusions
were drawn about the wiki and how it was used to foster collaboration.
Our agenda is as follows. First, we review the concept of scaffolding as it has been applied in literacy research and describe the
theoretical tenets that underpin the metaphor. Next, we critically review empirical studies of scaffolding as it relates to literacy
learning, with particular attention to how scaffolding is conceptualized in the studies. We organize our review in terms of three
categories of studies: 1) studies that have theoretical limitations in how the researchers interpreted the construct of scaffolding, 2)
studies that have methodological limitations in how researchers measured scaffolding, and 3) studies that provide rich descriptions of
scaffolding yet limited links between scaffolding and learning. We conclude by offering guidelines for future research that adhere to
the theoretical tenets of the concept and address the methodological weaknesses in the existing empirical research.

1. The scaffolding metaphor

The term scaffolding first appeared in the work of Bruner (1975) who described mothers interacting with their infants as
“supporting the child in achieving an intended outcome, entering only to assist or reciprocate or ‘scaffold’ the interaction” (p. 12).
The metaphor was subsequently invoked more deliberately by Wood et al. (1976), who described scaffolding as a “process that
enables a child or novice to solve a problem, carry out a task, or achieve a goal which would be beyond his unassisted efforts” (p. 90).
It is to this work that origination of the concept is commonly attributed. Wood et al. observed 30 three-, four- and five-year old
children as they engaged in a pyramid-building task with wooden blocks of various sizes along with the support of a tutor. The tutor
took a “gentle, appreciative approach to the children” (Wood et al., 1976, p. 92) and provided more or less help, typically in the form
of verbal prompts or corrections, depending on the actions of the child.
Wood et al.’s analysis resulted in a six-part description of the scaffolding process. Wood et al. specified that when scaffolding a
child’s performance, a tutor:

• recruits the child’s interest,

• simplifies and manages the task by reducing the degrees of freedom for the child,
• maintains the child’s attention and motivation on the task,
• marks critical features of the task,
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• controls frustration, and

• demonstrates when needed.
Wood et al. also argued that, while working with the child or novice, the tutor must maintain a theory of the learner in order to
appropriately scaffold the child’s completion of the task.
Although Vygotsky never referred to scaffolding in his writing, scholars were quick to recognize the similarities between scaf-
folding and Vygotsky’s (1978) concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD). Cazden (1979) was the first to explicitly link the
two concepts (see Stone, 1998). Later, Wood and Wood (1996) argued that the constructs of scaffolding and ZPD were com-
plementary; they noted that the ZPD described the gap between what a child can do alone and what can be achieved with guidance
from a more capable other, and scaffolding addressed the nature of the guidance needed to fill that gap (Wood & Wood, 1996, p. 5).
Further highlighting the synergy between the two concepts, Stone (1998) asserted that the analysis of interactions such as those
undertaken in Wood et al.’s (1976) work might serve as “an operationalization of Vygotsky’s ideas” (p. 346). Thus, the concepts of
scaffolding and ZPD became intertwined in much educational research.
Before we elucidate the theoretical tents of scaffolding, it is important to acknowledge a recent review of research on scaffolding
by van de Pol, Volman, and Beishuizen (2010). The authors examined the research on scaffolding in education in terms of how
scaffolding was conceptualized, how scaffolding was enacted in practice, and the effectiveness of scaffolding for learners. They
examined studies of scaffolding in various domains, although they identified only eight studies of the effectiveness of scaffolding for
learning (none of which pertained to literacy). The authors noted that although there was no consensus on the definition of scaf-
folding, characteristics of the concept frequently mentioned in the literature were contingency, fading, and release of responsibility.
In terms of how scaffolding was enacted in practice, the authors distinguished between means (i.e., strategies such as modeling or
questioning) and intentions on the part of the teacher or more knowledgeable other (e.g., to support cognitive activities) and they
suggested that this distinction might provide a useful framework for future analyses of scaffolding. They concluded that much is still
unknown about how the process of scaffolding impacts learning.
Our work extends on, and differs from, that of van de Pol et al. (2010) in several ways. First, we draw strictly on the conceptual
literature on scaffolding to identify the theoretical tenets of the concept. By contrast, van de Pol and colleagues included empirical
work in their efforts to identify characteristics of scaffolding commonly described in the literature. Our rationale for focusing on the
conceptual literature is that some researchers’ notions of scaffolding stray from its theoretical roots. By restricting ourselves to the
conceptual literature, we sought to avoid any misinterpretations of scaffolding evident in empirical studies. Second, we focus on
studies of scaffolding in literacy learning, whereas van de Pol et al. provided a broad review of scaffolding in various domains
(literacy, mathematics, social studies, science). Our focus allows for a more in-depth, nuanced description of the literature specific to
the literacy domain. We argue that the literacy domain provides a rich context in which to investigate scaffolding, as much is known
about the acquisition of literacy (the learning task) to help inform the role of scaffolding in learning. Third, we offer a critique of the
extant research in terms of the extent to which authors adhere to the theoretical tenets of the scaffolding metaphor. Van de Pol et al.
included a brief discussion of how studies aligned with frequently mentioned characteristics of scaffolding. Building on their work,
we offer a detailed critique of the conceptualization and measurement of scaffolding based on our understanding of the theoretical
underpinnings of the concept.

1.1. Theoretical tenets of scaffolding

Based on the work of Wood et al. (1976) and our review of related conceptual literature on scaffolding, we identify three key
theoretical tenets that underpin the metaphor: intersubjectivity, contingent support, and release of responsibility to the learner. In this
section, we describe these three key features by referencing their origin in the work of Wood et al. and expanding on each tenet based
on related conceptual literature.

1.1.1. Intersubjectivity
In their original work on scaffolding, Wood et al. (1976) noted, “one must recognize the relation between means and ends in order
to benefit from ‘knowledge of results”' (p. 90). In other words, after recruiting the child’s attention, the teacher and learner must have
a shared understanding of the goal of the activity and find common ground with regard to what is known and what is to be learned in
order to be successful (Puntambekar & Hubscher, 2005; Rogoff, 1984, 1990). The notion of intersubjectivity is often associated with
Rogoff (1990) who defined it as “the mutual understanding that is achieved between two people in communication” (p. 67). Though
Rogoff’s definition of intersubjectivity pertains to her construct of guided participation, in which adults finely tune their interactions
with children to foster learning, it applies well to the concept of scaffolding.
Intersubjectivity can be achieved through the teacher’s careful selection of the learning task which, in the process of joint pro-
blem-solving, addresses an emerging skill that is not yet mature for the learner and falls within the child’s ZPD (Palincsar, 1986;
Rogoff, 1990; Tharp & Gallimore, 1988; Vygotsky, 1978). Selection of such a task requires an understanding of the child’s current
skill level, which may not be easily determined, but is at the heart of learning and teaching (McNaughton, 2002). Teachers who select
an appropriate task can achieve intersubjectivity by making connections between the familiar and unfamiliar for the child, who is
then able to engage and learn from the instruction (McNaughton, 2002).
Palincsar (1998) noted the importance of correctly assessing the learner’s current understanding in her description of a research
project in which she and colleagues set out to promote elementary special education students’ engagement in the writing process.
After a period of initial observation, the researchers realized that beginning as they had planned, with instruction in strategies to plan

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and organize writing, would be futile given that “these students did not share a conception of writing that admitted a reason or
occasion for planning and organizing” (Palincsar, 1998, p. 371). The researchers then reworked their approach, and concluded that
their new understanding of the children’s definition of writing was essential for them to successfully scaffold the task. As this example
illustrates, shared understanding between the teacher and student is an essential component of scaffolding, and is presumed in the
teacher’s successful bridging of the new and the unknown for the learner (McNaughton, 2002; Rogoff, 1990).

1.1.2. Contingent support

A second key feature of scaffolding is contingent support, in which the level and kind of assistance provided by the teacher varies
depending on the performance of the child. According to Wood et al. (1976), an effective tutor maintains a theory of the task at hand
as well as a theory of the child’s capabilities, which influence the type of instruction and feedback provided to the learner. Given that
the exact nature of the child’s capabilities is difficult to ascertain, a teacher’s comment, explanation, or prompt might have a different
effect depending on the child’s level of expertise (McNaughton, 2002). Consequently, contingent support involves an ongoing di-
agnosis of the child’s capabilities (Puntambekar, 2009), as well as problem solving on the part of the tutor in terms of how to modify
instruction based on the learner’s response (Rogoff, 1990).
In scaffolded instruction, contingent support is responsive, adjustable, flexible, temporary, and often provided through dialogue
(Glasswell & Parr, 2009; Palincsar, 1986). Stone (2002) noted that nonverbal cues or gestures can serve as forms of support as well;
for example, a teacher might point instead of, or in addition to, using a verbal cue. Importantly, the student as well as the teacher
must be an active participant in these interactions, as both have a role in how the interaction plays out (Puntambekar, 2009).
Nonetheless, scaffolded instruction involves the teacher or adult continuously adjusting the level of help provided as a result of
ongoing diagnosis of the child’s level of understanding (Puntambekar & Hubscher, 2005). In other words, tutors calibrate in-flight the
help they provide based on the student’s response or performance, a process referred to as ‘contingent shifting’ (Evans, Moretti, Shaw,
& Fox, 2003; Rodgers, 2004; Rogoff 1984). According to van de Pol and Elbers (2013), this contingency is the central feature of
scaffolding.
When a child gets into difficulty, effective tutors immediately offer more specific help as part of contingent teaching (Wood &
Wood, 1996). The tutor in Wood et al.’s (1976) study exemplified contingent support by responding differently based on the child’s
behavior in the pyramid task. After the tutor modeled how two blocks fit together, some children continued to play imaginatively.
The tutor again modeled how to join together a correct pair of blocks. If the child correctly joined the two blocks together, the tutor
would provide less help and verbally cue the child to make more like that. If the child then attempted to put two blocks together but
did so incorrectly, the tutor provided more help and again modeled how to join together a pair, and drew the child’s attention to the
differences between her pair and the child’s pair. This example illustrates contingent support in that the tutor shifted her instruction
to be more or less explicit based on the response of the child.

1.1.3. Release of responsibility to the learner

According to Wood et al. (1976), scaffolding may result in the “development of task competence that would far outstrip his
unassisted efforts” (p. 90), such that the learner might require less assistance over time as a result of scaffolding instruction. In other
words, adults revise their level and kind of help while scaffolding not only as the child experiences difficulty, but also as the child’s
competence grows (Cazden, 2001; Rogoff, 1990). This notion can be described as a ‘gradual release of responsibility’ to the learner, a
term first used by Pearson and Gallagher (1983) to describe a model of instruction in which the responsibility for a task begins with
the teacher and, through joint participation and guided practice, shifts to the student until they become solely responsible for
applying what is learned.
Fading support is an essential part of contingent teaching, and is theorized to lead to the acquisition of task competence as
responsibility is handed over to the learner (Glasswell & Parr, 2009; Puntambekar & Hubscher, 2005; Wood & Wood, 1996). Ad-
ditionally, the tutor’s gradual release of support in scaffolded instruction should theoretically guide the learner toward the acquisition
of additional skills (Palincsar, 1986). Sherin et al. (2004) argued that, for this to occur, the task the learner practices must be aligned
with the task they will eventually be expected to complete alone. For example, a first grade child who practices reading little books
with support from a tutor may be better able to apply her reading skills to a new text than a child who practices decoding words in
isolation in the absence of applying such skills in continuous texts.
Within the gradual release of responsibility model, adults “up the ante” by challenging the child or student, which requires the
learner to take greater responsibility for the management of new tasks (Rogoff, 1990; Stone, 2002). Therefore, the aim of flexible,
temporary scaffolded instruction is for the learner to internalize specifics of the task as well as its process so it can be applied
independently in novel situations (Glasswell & Parr, 2009; Palincsar, 1986; Puntambekar & Hubscher, 2005). Clay’s (2001) literacy
processing theory aligns with this notion. Clay proposed that children’s progress from novice to competent reader occurs as a result of
a change in processing; readers progress from a system that is under construction and needs much support from a capable other, to
one that is self-extending and can process text rapidly, flexibly and independently (see also Doyle, 2013).
In sum, the key theoretical tenets that underpin the scaffolding metaphor, intersubjectivity, contingent support, and release of
responsibility to the learner, stem from the original work of Wood et al. (1976), but also have origins in related conceptual work on
scaffolding. In describing the key theoretical features of scaffolding, we seek to bring conceptual clarity to the term, and provide a
lens through which we can view studies that examine the role of scaffolding in literacy learning. Interestingly, although our review
was conducted independently of that of van de Pol et al. (2010), there is some overlap between these features and those identified by
van de Pol and colleagues. In the next section, we critically review empirical studies that examine the role of scaffolding in literacy
learning.

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Table 1
Studies of scaffolding with theoretical limitations.

Study Grade Focus of Interaction Theoretical Problem

Cumming-Potvin (2007) 7 Literature discussion Scaffolding operationalized as teacher questions.

Dieterich, Assel, Swank, Preschool Mother-child verbal interaction Scaffolding operationalized as nearly any form of maternal
Smith, and Landry interaction.
(2006)
Eichenberger and King K Whole-class language Scaffolding operationalized as any form of support.
(1995) experience dictation and
rereading
Juel (1996) 1 One-to-one tutoring by a Scaffolding operationalized as providing assistance to children
university student at difficulty.
Kim and White (2008) 3–5 Voluntary summer reading Scaffolding referred to the feedback parents might provide after
intervention listening to children read or tell about a book, rather than
moment-to-moment interactions during reading.
Kuhn et al. (2006) 2 Reading instruction using FORI Scaffolding operationalized generally as teacher support
through feedback or modeling.
Lutz et al. (2006) 4 Whole-class reading instruction Scaffolding defined as nearly any form of teacher talk.
Liang, Peterson, and Graves 3 Picture book reading Scaffolding operationalized as pre-determined activities before,
(2005) during, and after reading.
Mariage (1995) 2–5 (students who met POSSE comprehension Scaffolding operationalized as various kinds of teacher
criteria for LD instruction statements, not arranged on a continuum of high-low support.
placement)
Mertzman (2008) K-2 Literacy block Scaffolding defined as an interruption on the part of the teacher.
Montgomery and Kahn 9–12 Writing with a speech-language Scaffolded operationalized as teacher questioning and support
(2003) pathologist while writing.
Neuman (1996) Preschool Parent-child interactions during Scaffolding referred to the ways in which different types of
storybook reading books might serve as a scaffold for parent-child interactions
around storybook reading.
Neumann and Neumann Preschool Literacy activities in the home Scaffolding defined generally as visual or verbal cues/maternal
(2010) mediation.
Reutzel, Fawson, and Smith, 3 Scaffolded silent reading Scaffolding defined as periodic monitoring of the student and
(2008) interaction during silent reading (e.g. teacher modeling of
fluent reading).
Stahl, (2008) 2 Picture Walks, KWL, or DRTA Scaffolding process not specified.
Tobin and McInnes (2008) 2–3 Classroom literacy instruction Scaffolding process not specified.
Werderich (2006) 6–7 Teacher-student dialogue Scaffolding defined as teacher responses in the journal, not in-
journals the-moment interactions.
White, Kim, Kingston, and K-5 Voluntary summer reading Scaffolding operationalized as pre-determined activities before,
Foster (2013) program during, and after reading.

FORI = Fluency-oriented reading instruction; KWL = Know-Want to Learn-Learn technique; DRTA = Directed Reading-Thinking Activity.

2. Scaffolding learning in literacy

Although the concept of scaffolding is well known among researchers and educators and frequently used, there is surprisingly
little direct empirical evidence of the role scaffolding plays in literacy learning. Among the studies on this topic, we argue that they
suffer from a number of weaknesses. In this section, we critically review the empirical research on scaffolding and literacy learning.
We do so by first examining studies that have, in our view, theoretical limitations with regard to how researchers invoked the term
scaffolding, then by examining those that are more theoretically satisfying in the way researchers used the term but show some
weaknesses in how they measured contingent, responsive support. We then review studies that are both theoretically and metho-
dologically defensible, yet have limitations with regard to the conclusions that can be drawn about the impact of scaffolding on
literacy learning.

2.1. Theoretical limitations

Of the studies that have examined scaffolding in literacy learning, a small subset present a broad interpretation of scaffolding,
defining it simply as teacher practices or supports, rather than in terms of a theoretically informed process that involves contingent
shifting on the part of the teacher. Table 1 provides a description of these studies. Two studies representative of this group are
described below.
Juel’s (1996) study of university student athletes who tutored poor first grade readers exemplifies the theoretical limitation
inherent in this group of studies. Juel sought to determine the benefits of one-to-one cross-age tutoring and identify the factors that
seem to contribute to the success of individual tutoring in literacy. Twenty-seven first grade children were tutored by a university
athlete twice a week for 45 min over the course of a school year, and were engaged in a combination of reading, writing, alphabet and
phonemic awareness activities during each session. Fifteen first grade students who were mentored, but not tutored, by an athlete
served as the control group. Results of repeated measures ANOVA revealed that the tutored students far surpassed the non-tutored

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students on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, but did not reach average levels of achievement by the spring of their first grade year. To
better understand the interactions of the most successful dyads, Juel analyzed videotapes of the 15 most successful pairs, and
determined that many of the interactions could be characterized as “scaffolded reading and writing experiences” (Juel, 1996, p. 283).
Although Juel’s (1996) results indicated that scaffolding was associated with the students’ success, scaffolding in this context
simply meant providing help when the child was stuck, rather than adjusting help to provide more or less assistance in response to the
child or releasing responsibility to the learner over time. Juel defined a scaffolding experience as “one in which the tutor enabled the
child to complete a task that the child couldn’t otherwise do (e.g., read or spell a word) by providing a piece of information and/or
segmenting the task into smaller, clearer ones” (p. 283). Therefore, although the tutor and child presumably achieved inter-
subjectivity, and the tutor seemed to be operating in the child’s zone of proximal development, the assistance the tutors provided was
coded as a ‘scaffold’ anytime it served to help the child problem solve. Juel referenced Vygotsky (1978) and Wood et al. (1976)
among others associated with the theoretical underpinnings of scaffolding in her discussion of this finding. However, scaffolding in
this study remained broadly defined as teacher assistance.
Another example of a broad conceptualization of scaffolding comes from Lutz, Guthrie, and Davis (2006), who used a micro-
genetic approach to examine the relationship between student engagement and teacher scaffolding during whole-class elementary
reading instruction. The authors observed three grade 4 classrooms for approximately 30 min, and subsequently gave each partici-
pating teacher a scaffolding score that represented the total number of scaffolding behaviors used in 30-second observational in-
tervals over the course of one lesson. Analysis of the teacher scaffolding scores and student outcome measures revealed that students
were more likely to maintain their engagement when the teachers initially used a high number of scaffolding behaviors and then
reduced the number of scaffolding behaviors during the course of the lesson. Additionally, students whose teachers used a variety and
greater number of scaffolds scored higher in reading comprehension.
Although Lutz et al. (2006) found that scaffolding did relate positively to student engagement and learning, unfortunately their
conceptualization of scaffolding reflects an interpretation that is simply synonymous with ‘support’ and fails to embody the theo-
retical tenets of the metaphor. The ‘Teacher Scaffolding Rubric’ they used to code the teachers’ scaffolding described nearly 80
behaviors, such that almost any teacher move was coded as a scaffold. Consequently, although the authors demonstrated that fading
support, one of the principles of scaffolding, correlated positively with engagement, it was the quantity of teacher talk in general that
faded rather than the level of support provided. Indeed, some researchers argue that scaffolding may not be possible beyond a one-to-
one setting, such as in a whole-class context, (Cazden, 2001; Hobsbaum, Peters, & Sylva, 1996) because intersubjectivity and con-
tingent support are hard to achieve.
Although the studies that fall into this category bring attention to the construct of scaffolding, the authors’ broad con-
ceptualizations of scaffolding as simply general support or strategy instruction do not align with the tenets of the metaphor.
Intersubjectivity might have been achieved in some of the studies in this category, particularly those in one-to-one tutoring contexts,
but researchers did not attend to contingent support or the gradual release of responsibility to the learner. Overall, these studies are
too limited theoretically to help clarify the role of scaffolding in literacy learning.

2.2. Methodological limitations

In contrast to studies of scaffolding with theoretical limitations, other researchers have conducted studies of scaffolding in which
the construct was well represented in terms of its theoretical tenets; however, the way they measured or analyzed scaffolding fell
short. We judged studies in this group as having three limitations: 1) adult interactions were not analyzed in conjunction with
responses of the child, 2) the adult help was not arranged along a continuum of support, or 3) the criteria used to determine the
child’s zone of proximal development and measure contingency were too broad. Table 2 summarizes the studies in this group, and our
critique of studies representative of each limitation follows.
Pentimonti and Justice’s (2010) work represents an empirical study of scaffolding in which the authors’ interpretation of scaf-
folding was theoretically sound, but the way scaffolding was measured in their study was not. The authors sought to determine the
extent to which teachers used high and low support scaffolds, and to establish if teachers’ perceptions of their use of scaffolding
aligned with the researchers’ observations. The authors highlighted Wood et al. (1976) and Vygotsky’s (1978) notion of the ZPD in
their theoretical framing, and referred to the importance of the gradual release of support as the learner becomes more skilled. They
also noted that teachers must understand the level of scaffolding necessary, and be responsive and flexible to successfully assist a
student. However, although the authors alluded to the key theoretical features of scaffolding, their analysis failed to adhere to them.
In Pentimonti and Justice (2010), five teachers of four-year-old children, who were part of a larger study, participated in a one-
day workshop that included training in six scaffolding strategies for whole-class and small-group settings taken from the Ladders to
Literacy instruction manual (O’Connor, Notari-Syverson, & Vadasy, 2005 as cited in Pentimonti & Justice, 2010). The strategies,
which ranged from high to low support, included eliciting, reducing choices, co-participating, generalizing, reasoning and predicting.
Months later, each participating teacher read aloud Jan Brett’s The Mitten, and the frequency of each teacher’s use of the six scaf-
folding strategies while reading was analyzed. To the best of our knowledge, only the teachers’ talk was transcribed and coded.
Results indicated that teachers overwhelmingly used the low support strategies of predicting, reasoning, and generalizing.
Consideration of the methods used in this study reveals that what was being observed in this study was not scaffolding, but rather
differentiation. In fact, the authors concluded that their finding “suggests that teachers may not be differentiating their strategy use to
the extent needed for all children to benefit from read aloud interaction” (Pentimonti & Justice, 2010, p. 246). The authors did not
consider if or how the teachers assessed students’ understanding or the contingency of the teacher’s responses to student questions or
comments. In sum, although the study demonstrated the types of strategies preschool teachers used in a whole-class read aloud, it did

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Table 2
Studies of scaffolding with methodological limitations.

Study Grade Focus of Interaction Methodological Problem

Ankrum, Genest, and Belcastro
(2014)
Chien et al. (2010)
Conner, Knight, and Cross (1997)
Donovan and Smolkin (2002)
Dunston et al. (2010)
Englert, Rozendal, and Mariage
(1994)
Evans et al. (2003)
Gerde, Bingham, and Pendergast
(2015)
Gilliand (2014)
Gissel (2015)
Gonzalez (2014)
Larsen and Nippold (2007)
Lin, McBride-Chang, Aram, and
Levin (2011)
Lin et al. (2012)
McBride-Chang et al. (2012)
Neumann, Hood, and Ford (2012)
Pentimonti and Justice (2010)
Radford, Bosanquet, Webster, and
Blatchford (2015)
Skibbe, Behnke, and Justice
(2004)
Vadasay and Sanders (2008)
Wharton-McDonald, Pressley, and
Hampston (1998)
Wollman-Bonilla (2001)
K Small-group reading Coding of teacher moves not arranged in terms of level of
help provided.
Preschool Daily classroom activities No scale of help used in analyzing the interactions
between teachers and students.
Preschool Picture book reading Criteria for determining the region of sensitivity to
instruction (ZPD) not elucidated.
K-5 Writing Interactions between teacher and student not examined.
1 Picture book reading Coding of Mother’s moves not arranged in terms of level
of help.
K-3 Reading groups Instructional scaffolds not arranged in terms of level of
help provided.
1 Picture book reading Region of sensitivity to instruction (ZPD) defined too
broadly; difficulties in measurement of contingency.
Preschool Writing Teacher scaffolding moves not arranged in terms of level
of help provided.
9–12 Writing conferences Scaffolding not analyzed in terms of level of help
provided.
2 eBook reading? Text-to-speech help not responsive to needs of students.
3–4 (students with eBook reading? eBooks help not responsive to needs of student.
reading disabilities)
6 Morphological awareness Teacher prompts not adjusted flexibly based on needs of
activities student.
K Writing Only mother’s talk analyzed, not teacher-student
interactions.
K Writing Only mother’s talk analyzed, not teacher-student
interactions.
K Reading and Writing Only mother’s talk analyzed, not teacher-student
interactions.
Preschool Grocery shop play Mothers' behaviors coded on a scale of help, but not in
response to student.
Preschool Whole-class read aloud Only teacher talk analyzed, not teacher-student
interactions.
4 and 7 (students with Literacy and math lessons Contingency discussed but not explained; no scale of
special needs) help.
Preschool Picture book reading Mother and child responses coded but analyzed
separately.
2–3 Repeated reading No explanation how ‘appropriate scaffolding’ was
operationalized.
1 Reading and writing instruction Scaffolding linked to high performing teachers, but
criteria for determining scaffolding not elucidated.
K-1 Parent responses in Family Instructional scaffolds not arranged in terms of level of
Message Journals help provided.

not provide insight into how scaffolding was employed. Because the authors examined only the teacher’s talk rather than the in-
teractions between the students and teacher, the responsiveness of the teacher’s support to the student could not be determined.
Another limitation among studies in this category was that researchers conceptualized scaffolding in a theoretically satisfying way
but failed to arrange the varying levels of adult help along a continuum of support, making it difficult to analyze contingency. For
example, Dunston, Patterson, and Daniels (2010) examined African American mothers’ scaffolding of their first grade children during
read aloud. The authors were interested in the timing and type of maternal feedback during reading, and how this might compare
with teacher feedback. They videotaped 60 mother-child dyads reading Grace Maccarone’s Sharing Time Troubles during the spring of
the child’s first grade year. Mothers were not provided instructions other than to help their child in any way they saw fit. Verbal and
non-verbal interactions were transcribed, scored and coded according to one of 10 child “triggers” (e.g., insertion, substitution) and
one of 10 types of feedback provided by the mother (e.g., graphophonic, telling words). Analysis indicated 100 possible combinations
of child-mother interactions, from which seven styles of maternal feedback emerged. The authors found that mothers of children with
lower levels of reading accuracy were more likely to provide terminal feedback or premature assistance, whereas mothers of children
with higher reading accuracy were more likely to provide no feedback.
Although Dunston et al. (2010) analyzed adult-child interactions, the authors failed to arrange the 10 categories of assistance
along a continuum of support that allowed for analysis of parental scaffolding on a moment-to-moment basis; hence, it is impossible
to determine whether the parent was providing more or less help to the child depending on the child’s response. Further, the seven
summarized patterns of maternal mediation might be useful for understanding how parents support their child while reading,
particularly at the point of difficulty, yet there is no way of determining contingency based on the summarized categories of feedback.
In another set of studies, the researchers conceptualized scaffolding in a theoretically satisfying way, and seem to have suc-
cessfully captured and measured what is at the heart of scaffolding (i.e., contingent support). However, although scaffolding was well

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represented and studied in terms of its theoretical tenets, we judge there were methodological limitations in the way the authors
determined the child’s zone of proximal development and measured contingency.
One such study by Evans et al. (2003) examined parents’ sensitivity to their children’s reading on a moment-to-moment basis to
determine if parental support was related to their children’s reading skills. The summer before the children began second grade, the
authors observed 46 parent-child dyads engaged in reading books of varying difficulty. Parent comments following an oral reading
error by the child were coded in three ways. First, comments were numbered, so if a parent intervened more than once the first
response was coded 1, the second 2, etc. Then the parent comments were assigned a letter that corresponded to the level of help
provided. For example, A, the least amount of help, was coded when the parent ignored a child’s misreading of a word, whereas G, the
most amount of help, was coded when the parent told the child the word. Finally, each response was coded as successful or un-
successful depending on whether the children correctly read the word as a result of the parental feedback.
The method employed by Evans et al., 2003 to analyze scaffolding was informed by Pratt and colleagues (Pratt, Green, MacVicar,
& Bountrogianni, 1992 ; Pratt, Kerig, Cowan, & Cowan, 1988; Pratt & Savoy-Levine, 1998) who utilized the concept of ‘region of
sensitivity to instruction’ (RSI) as a way of operationalizing parental support in a child’s zone of proximal development. The concept
originated in Wood and Middleton’s (1975) study of assisted problem solving, who defined it as “the level at which the child failed to
follow the most specific or helpful instruction” (Wood & Middleton, 1975, p. 185). Pratt et al. (1992) operationalized the region of
sensitivity for their study of parental assistance in math as the level “just below the least directive level where the child could succeed
75% of the time” (p. 22).
Evans et al. (2003) used this approach but noted that when they applied a 75% success rate cut score, they could identify the RSI
for only slightly more than half of the parent-child dyads. They therefore chose not to apply a cut score and defined the RSI as the
level of help just below the one in which the child experienced the greatest success, plus the level in which the child had the greatest
success. This resulted, of course, in a broader range for the RSI. For example, a child who most often succeeded with parent feedback
at level E (provides more specific clue to narrow possibilities, such as articulates the first phoneme) and above, and failed more often at a
lower level of support, level D (provides hint that still leaves open many possibilities, such as drawing attention to the first letter), would
have an RSI of levels D and E. The authors also calculated the percentage of parent contingent shifts in each episode, which re-
presented the proportion of moves to a higher, lower, or the same level of support in response to the child’s success or failure.
Measures of children’s reading skill were collected during the spring of their first and second grade year.
Consistent with the construct of scaffolding, Evans et al.’s (2003) results indicated that parents were sensitive to their child’s
performance and adjusted their level of support contingently. They found that parents provided a substantial amount of feedback
(over 40%) within a child’s RSI; most parent moves (74%) following unsuccessful feedback were at an increased level of support; and
parents were more supportive of children with weaker skills. However, contrary to expectations, the authors found that contingent
feedback was not more common within a child’s RSI and that parent feedback within the child’s RSI was negatively correlated with
reading achievement – the latter meaning that support at levels further from the child’s RSI was associated with higher reading
scores.
Evans et al. (2003) are to be applauded for successfully capturing scaffolding as contingent support in their analysis of parent
feedback. As such, their study holds promise for future research addressing the impact of scaffolding on children’s literacy learning.
Nonetheless, two methodological problems may have contributed to their anomalous results. First, because the researchers were not
able to apply a cut score when identifying the RSI and ultimately defined it as a span of two levels, their operationalization of the RSI
was probably too broad to serve as a useful estimate of the child’s ZPD. Second, as Evans et al. (2003) conceded, unlike in s (1988,
1992); construction and computational tasks, where only one type of response was possible for a given level of support, in reading,
multiple responses following an error were possible at a given level of support; this means that the parent could offer a subsequent
response that was different from the first but at the same level of support, and this could have been sufficient for helping the child to
problem solve. Hence, Evan’s coding of contingency in terms of level of help might not have been sensitive to the different kinds of
support parents provided. Perhaps a more fine-grained measure of contingent shifting would have been appropriate; for example, a
second, different prompt at the same level of help could have been considered contingent if the child was subsequently successful.
In sum, many studies come close to capturing and measuring the construct of scaffolding in a way that is consistent with its
theoretical tenets. However, several methodological limitations make it difficult to ascertain the relationship between scaffolding and
literacy learning. Observations in whole-class contexts and lack of analysis of teacher-student interactions call into question whether
the teachers and students achieved intersubjectivity. The failure of some researchers to arrange adult assistance along a continuum of
support from least to most help, a broad definition of the region of sensitivity to instruction, and coarse measures of contingency
make it difficult to assess whether support was contingent and responsive in this group of studies. We note, too, that researchers in
these studies collected data from only one set of observations; therefore, it was not possible to observe a gradual release of re-
sponsibility.

2.3. Rich descriptions of scaffolding yet limited links to learning

In this section we review studies that provide rich descriptions of scaffolding in interactions between students and teachers, but
are limited in the conclusions that can be drawn about the role of scaffolding in literacy learning. The studies in this section are
divided into three categories: small-group instruction, one-on-one tutoring, and mother-child interactions. In highlighting an ex-
emplar study from each of these categories, we describe how the term scaffolding is invoked in these studies and the authors’
contributions to our understanding of scaffolding, and we identify limitations in the claims that can be made about the impact of
scaffolding on literacy learning.

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Table 3
Studies of scaffolding in small-group instruction.

Study Grade Focus of Interaction Problem

Jadallah et al. (2011) 4 Collaborative Reasoning No measure of student

learning.
Jordan (2015) 1 Discussion No measure of student
learning.
Lin et al. (2015) 4 Discussion Limited links to learning.
Maloch (2002) 3 Literature discussion No measure of student
learning.
Palincsar and Brown (1984) 7 Reciprocal teaching Limited links to learning.
Sillman, Bahr, Beasman, and Wilkinson 1 & 3 (students with learning disabilities) & 2 Emergent reading No measure of student
(2000) (typical peers) learning.

2.3.1. Small-group instruction

As mentioned earlier, researchers are in disagreement over whether scaffolding in its true theoretical sense can be applied in
environments outside of a one-to-one context (Cazden, 2001; Hobsbaum et al., 1996). Hobsbaum et al. (1996) argued that scaffolding
can only take place in one-to-one settings given that a deep understanding of the learner’s history, the task at hand, and what is
needed to move forward are necessary for the tutor to respond contingently (p. 32). However, several studies of scaffolding during
small-group instruction offer evidence of teachers’ ability to respond on a moment-to-moment basis. Table 3 summarizes the studies
in this category.
Maloch’s (2002) study of literature discussions is representative of these studies. Maloch examined the impact of teacher scaf-
folding on student talk through participant observation of a third grade classroom over five months, during which the teacher
implemented student-led literature discussion groups. Data sources included 30 videotaped discussions, interviews with the teacher
and students, artifacts, and field notes. Constant-comparative analysis revealed that the teacher scaffolded students’ attempts at
discussion by varying her support according to the students’ developing understanding. For example, early on the students responded
to the teacher’s questions with one-word answers that did not contribute to rich discussion. She then used gestures and questions to
elicit explanations from the students, but the students continued to provide the same short responses. As a result, the teacher provided
more help, and became more explicit in her elicitation as well as provided demonstrations. In later discussions, the same vague cues
that failed to elicit follow-up questions and reasoning from the students were successful. Thus, Maloch’s in-depth case study de-
monstrated how one teacher’s in-the-moment-responsiveness influenced her students’ participation in literature discussions.
Maloch’s (2002) observations seem to indicate that the teacher responded contingently, but we do not know if it was the teacher’s
behavior that had an impact on students’ participation because teacher behavior was not linked to students’ contributions; students’
participation may have changed because of their increasing familiarity with the format of the discussions over time or because of
some other reason. Further, no measures of student learning were employed.
Two other studies in this category, Lin et al. (2015), and Palincsar and Brown (1984), came closer to establishing links to student
learning. Palincsar and Brown found that seventh grade students working in small groups taught using reciprocal teaching, which
incorporated many key features of scaffolding, demonstrated increased sophistication in their interactions with text and marked gains
in performance on comprehension tasks. Lin et al. (2015), in their study of small-group, collaborative reasoning discussions, found
that teacher prompts for relational thinking (the kind of thinking used in causal, analogical, or hypothetical reasoning), which were
supposedly contingent on students’ contributions to the discussion, were indeed related to an increase in 4th grade students’ rela-
tional thinking. However, no other measures of student learning were used. In sum, a clear association between teacher’s scaffolding
in small-group contexts and student learning has yet to be established.

2.3.2. One-to-one tutoring

Studies that have examined scaffolding in one-to-one tutoring provide rich, qualitative descriptions of the scaffolding interactions
between expert teachers and students who are learning to read and write. However, the authors made no attempt to link teachers’
scaffolding to student outcomes, again limiting to the conclusions that can be made about the impact on learning. Table 4 summarizes
the studies in this category.
An ideal context for exploring the nature of scaffolding in tutoring is Reading Recovery (Rodgers, 2004). Reading Recovery is an
intensive 12–20 week intervention for struggling first grade readers who are taught daily lessons by a trained teacher. Each daily 30-
min lesson includes the following components: reading a familiar book, taking a running record, word work, composing and writing a
story, assembling the cut-up story, and reading a new book. Though each lesson follows the same routine, the instruction is in-
dividualized and tailored to the student’s needs with the goal of lifting the student’s strategic processing and problem solving through
a self-extending system (Clay, 2001). According to Clay and Cazden (1990), in Reading Recovery the teacher’s support is not simply
removed as the child’s competence grows, but rather continues as the child progresses, making the one-to-one intervention a useful
context for examining scaffolding in teacher-student interactions.
Researchers have investigated scaffolding within the writing and reading components of the intervention. For example, Rodgers
(2004) conducted a case study of two Reading Recovery teachers working one-to-one with a total of four first grade students over 12
weeks to determine the nature of scaffolded instruction in the introduction of a new book in the Reading Recovery lesson. Data

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Table 4
Studies of scaffolding in one-to-one tutoring.

Study Grade Focus of Interaction Problem

Clay and Cazden (1990) 1 Reading Recovery Scaffolding not linked to student learning.
Hedin and Gaffney (2013) 6 One-to-one tutoring in reading Scaffolding not linked to student learning.
Henderson, Many, Welborn, and Ward Preschool Reading & writing No measure of student learning.
(2002)
Hobsbaum et al. (1996) 1 Reading Recovery Scaffolding not linked to student learning.
Lee and Schmitt (2014) 1 Reading Recovery Unclear whether teachers’ scaffolding accounted for variation in
student achievement.
Malicky, Juliebo, Norman, and Pool 1 Reading Recovery Unclear whether teachers’ scaffolding accounted for variation in
(1997) student achievement.
Rodgers (2004) 1 Reading Recovery Scaffolding not linked to student learning.
Schmid, Miodrag, and Di Francesco Preschool Early literacy tutoring guided by No measure of student learning.
(2008) computer

sources included video and audiotaped lesson, teacher reflections, and student scores from the Observation Survey (Clay, 2013).
Rogers identified and coded each cycle of student-teacher interaction, which was defined as a series of student and teacher moves that
began with a student miscue or error and ended with accurate reading.
Rodgers (2004) distinguished between two kinds of help: help focused on words (e.g., working on words previously encountered
by the child and known by sight), and help focused on taking some action (e.g., prompting the student to use meaning or point one-to-
one). Within each kind of help, teachers provided varying levels of support. Qualitative analysis revealed that the teachers differ-
entiated the kind and level of help they provided for each of their students, and that the help they provided tended to match the
child’s developing reading skills. For example, in her interactions with a particular student, one Reading Recovery teacher spent only
20% of her moves focused on words; 80% of her moves were to prompt the child to take action, such as to match one-to-one speech
with print or consider the first letter of an unknown word, because the child needed more support in matching or to use the initial
letter of a word to problem solve.
The rich description of the teacher-student interactions presented by Rodgers (2004) illustrates the nature of responsive, scaf-
folded support during instruction in a Reading Recovery lesson. Although Rodgers (2004) noted that all students made considerable
progress within a short period of time and reached average levels of achievement by the end of their tutoring sessions, she cautioned
that this did not imply that the teachers’ scaffolding directly impacted children’s progress. This ambiguity about the impact of
scaffolding on learning is typical of studies in this category. Nonetheless, this work sheds light on the nature of the student-teacher
interactions in a one-to-one setting, which is a fruitful context in which to explore scaffolding, particularly contingent responsiveness,
and its impact on literacy learning.

2.3.3. Mother-child interactions

Several studies of scaffolding in literacy involve mother-child interactions. These are summarized in Table 5. As with studies of
scaffolding in small-groups and one-to-one tutoring, researchers have focused more on the description of scaffolded interactions
rather than establishing links between scaffolding and children’s learning.
Neuman and Gallagher (1994) were among the first literacy researchers to examine the impact of explicit instruction in con-
tingent responsiveness on learning. The authors coached six teenage mothers on ways to engage with their three to four-year old
children in labeling (identifying literacy items such as a piece of stationery and envelope, asking questions about their use), scaf-
folding (recruiting the child’s interest, demonstrating and augmenting the child’s efforts), and contingent responsivity (extending
upon the child’s previous utterance, asking clarifying questions, and answering the child’s questions). Analysis of 45 sessions per dyad
and pre- and post-test measures from the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test revealed that increased responsivity from mothers was
associated with “increased initiative and literacy and cognitive growth on the part of the children” (Neuman & Gallagher, p. 398).
Although the authors were cautious in claiming that the explicit instruction in contingent responsivity caused the children’s literacy
learning, they argued that such intervention can help low-income mothers structure interactions with their children and should
promote learning. Other studies in this category similarly describe the scaffolded interactions between mothers and children, yet offer
limited evidence of the impacts on learning.
In sum, many studies of scaffolding, whether in small groups, one-to-one tutoring, or mother-child interactions, have furthered

Table 5
Studies of scaffolding in mother-child interaction.

Study Grade Focus of Interaction Problem

Bailey and Moughamian (2007) Preschool Conversation about narrative Limited links between scaffolding and student learning.
McDonnell, Friel-Patti, and Rollins (2003) Preschool Repeated storybook reading Scaffolding not linked to student learning.
Murase (2014) Preschool Picture Book Reading Limited links between scaffolding and student learning.
Neuman and Gallagher (1994) Preschool Language & literacy experiences at school Limited links between scaffolding and student learning.
Snow (1983) Preschool Language & literacy experiences in home Scaffolding not linked to student learning.

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our understanding of the construct by offering rich descriptions of the nature of adult-child interactions in a literacy learning context.
However, several questions remain. First, it is unclear whether researchers who examined scaffolding in small-group contexts were
able to capture intersubjectivity and contingent responsiveness, even when repeated observations were used to examine change over
time in the nature of teacher and student participation. Second, although the one-to-one context of mother-child interactions may be
more suitable for examining scaffolding, it is unclear whether mothers have the same understanding or theory of the task at hand as
teachers or highly skilled reading specialists and how this might this impact instructional decisions. Third, as we noted, studies with
rich descriptions of scaffolded interactions nonetheless failed to link teachers’ contingent responses to students’ literacy learning.

3. Guidelines to advance inquiry into scaffolding in literacy learning

Given the literacy field’s ready embrace of the concept of scaffolding, research on scaffolding and literacy learning is surprisingly
sparse, and many studies that do address the topic have a number of weaknesses. Additionally, although qualitative studies have
yielded rich descriptions of the scaffolding of expert tutors, they yield little insight as to whether these behaviors impact student
learning. If we suppose that effective literacy instruction depends on teachers’ ability to contingently intervene (following Evans
et al., 2003; Hedin & Gaffney, 2013; Puntambekar & Hubscher, 2005; and van de Pol & Elbers, 2013), then we must have a way of
investigating scaffolding in a theoretically and methodologically defensible way. Further research is still needed to elucidate the
impact of scaffolding on children’s literacy learning.
In this section, we offer several recommendations to guide future research to address the role of scaffolding in children’s literacy
learning, and highlight exemplary studies that have demonstrated adherence to these guidelines. We argue that future research on the
impact of scaffolding on literacy learning should: 1) focus on the interactions between teachers and students, 2) address contingent
responsiveness 3) demonstrate the release of responsibility to the learner, and 4) incorporate student outcome data. We expand upon
each of these guidelines in turn.

• Focus on interactions between teachers and students. Although it may seem obvious, given the interactive nature of scaf-
folding, researchers must allow for the interactions between teachers and students to be examined together (cf. Reynolds & Daniel,
2017). Studies of teacher-student interactions that analyze only teacher moves, removed from students responses, contribute little
to understanding scaffolding because they ignore the student’s role and the joint-participation between an expert and novice that
is inherent to the construct of scaffolding. In the absence of data on interactions between teachers and students, we cannot be sure
there was intersubjectivity, contingency on the part of the tutor, or a gradual release of responsibility.
• Address contingent responsiveness. Perhaps the most critical aspect of a study that examines scaffolding in terms of its key
features is the operationalization of scaffolding as contingent, responsive support. To address the flexible, in-the-moment response
of the teacher to the student, as well as the handover of responsibility to the learner, a measurement framework such as Wood’s
(2003) contingent levels or van de Pol et al.’s contingent-shift framework (see below) may be useful to assess whether and how the
teacher adapts their level of help to student understanding.
• Show a gradual release of responsibility. Future scaffolding research should account for the shift in participation between the
child and the teacher as the child moves closer to the learning goal, and examine interactions in light of what is expected of the
child at the time. The microgenetic method, for example, (Chinn, 2006; Siegler & Crowley, 1991; see also Nutall, 1999; Nutall &
Alton-Lee, 1993) may be useful because of the dense, trial-by-trial data collection across multiple learning events associated with
this methodology. Applying a microgenetic method over a prolonged period of time would allow researchers to detect when
knowledge or strategy use changes, and, hopefully to understand the mechanisms underlying the observed shifts.
• Incorporate student outcome data. Student outcome data are needed to demonstrate the impact of teachers scaffolding on
student learning. Statistical techniques such as multilevel modeling (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002) may be useful, as they have the
capability to link teacher responsiveness to student literacy outcomes and account for nesting of achievement data over time
within students and within teacher-student dyads or teacher-led small groups.

Here we offer two examples of studies that have taken up these guidelines for scaffolding research. Although outside of the
literacy domain, van de Pol, Volman, Oort and Beishuizen’s (2015) study illustrates all four of our guidelines. The authors in-
vestigated whether teacher scaffolding of 8th grade social studies was related to student achievement using an experimental design in
which participants were either in a scaffolding or non-scaffolding condition (see van de Pol, Volman, Elbers, & Beishuizen, 2012; van
de Pol, Volman, Oort, & Beishuiz, 2013; van de Pol & Elbers, 2013 for more on the scaffolding condition). To measure teachers’
contingency, the authors analyzed “interaction fragments” (p. 623) that captured the teacher-student interactions, and determined
within a three-turn sequence of teacher turn-student turn-teacher turn the degree of control exerted by the teacher, the student
understanding, and the degree of control in the second teacher move. Teachers’ moves were contingent if they increased control upon
poor student understanding, or decreased control upon good understanding, and non-contingent if the teacher provided more help
when the student showed good understanding or less help when student understanding was poor. Measures of student learning
included a 17-item multiple choice social studies test and an assessment of social studies concepts. Measures of students’ independent
work time, task effort, and appreciation of support were also used. Results indicated that teachers in the scaffolding condition were
more contingent than were teachers in the non-scaffolding condition, and students in the scaffolding condition engaged in more
independent work time (which the authors argued might serve as a proxy for the release of support to the learner and increased
independence). However, van de Pol et al. found no relationship between contingency and student achievement.
In the context of early literacy, Rodgers, D’Agostino, Harmey, Kelly and Brownfield’s (2016) study of teachers’ scaffolding in

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Reading Recovery lessons is also illustrative of our guidelines. To measure scaffolding, the authors analyzed talk cycles, defined as
interactions around problem-solving in the first reading of a new book. Within the talk cycles, each teacher move was coded in terms
of how much information the teacher provided, and each student move was coded as success or failure. Then, instructional con-
tingency – how much help was provided – was determined by whether or not the teacher gave more help when the student failed or
the same or less help when the student succeeded. The authors also coded each teacher and student move in terms of what source of
information was used or neglected (visual information, meaning, or structure). This coding was used to measure domain contingency
– what the teacher decided to focus on next in teaching (Wood, 2003) – defined in terms of the teacher’s ability to respond using the
sources of information that the student neglected. Across two time points, the authors found that teachers’ instructional contingency
was not related to student outcomes, but domain contingency was associated with higher student outcomes.

4. Conclusion

In this review, we sought to bring conceptual clarity to the scaffolding metaphor and to interrogate the extant literature on
scaffolding in literacy in terms of its adherence to the theoretical tenets of the construct and the methodology used to determine the
relationship between scaffolding and literacy learning. We also sought to provide guidelines for future researchers who wish to take
on the task of understanding student-teacher interactions and how they impact literacy learning. Given this examination of the state
of the knowledge, what do we now know about scaffolding and its relationship to learning?
Although there are theoretically justifiable reasons to believe that teachers’ scaffolding has a positive impact on students’
learning, we were unable to identify an empirical study that has successfully linked instructional contingency with increased student
outcomes in literacy. There is some empirical evidence to suggest that domain contingency, what Wood (2003) referred to as an
understanding of “what to focus on next in the time course of teaching” (p. 14) may be important (e.g., Rodgers et al., 2016), but we
know of no study that has satisfactorily linked temporal contingency, or the timing of assistance, with literacy learning. We cannot
conclude with reasonable surety that such scaffolding is productive for children’s literacy learning.
Perhaps scaffolding itself, and particularly instructional contingency, is so difficult to relate to student learning because of the
complex contexts within which teacher-student interactions occur. Teachers and parents have such intimate knowledge of the child,
and a researcher transcribing and coding an interaction may not be privy to the rationale behind the teacher’s decision-making.
Therefore, researchers must navigate the tension between capturing and measuring scaffolding in a valid and reliable way, while also
recognizing and appreciating the context within which teacher decisions are made. Nonetheless, this is an area worth investigating.
The field is poised for advances in this area as a clearer understanding of the construct of scaffolding, thoughtful advances in terms of
how to measure scaffolding, and rich descriptions of scaffolded interactions that are linked to student learning provide the foun-
dations for future research.

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