Scaffolding for Reading Comprehension

Let's face it: at times, we ask our students to read some pretty sophisticated stuff. Some of our students are advanced readers; they don't need our support. Others really struggle with reading challenging texts, and may need a framework designed to guide their comprehension. Eventually, this framework can be altered as students need it less and less -- the teacher can scaffold the support so that she gradually releases responsibility to the student.

What follows is a fiction example using Romeo & Juliet that I'm borrowing from Kelly Gallagher's (2004) Deeper Reading: Comprehending Challenging Texts, 4-12. But, I truly think this type of scaffolding could also be quite impactful for non-fiction texts as well, across the content areas.

The Romeo & Juliet example:

As they begin reading this challenging play, students are given outlines of the upcoming scene, but the outline has some gaps in it. For example, for Act I scene i, students might be given the following outline:

• Sampson and Gregory, two of Capulet's servants, fight with Abram and Baltazar, who are servants from the rival house of Montague.
• Tybalt, a quick-tempered Capulet, enters the fight.
• 
  
• The Prince enters and, enraged, stops the fight.
• The Montagues express concern about their son, Romeo.
• Romeo confesses to Benvolio that he is in love with a girl who is indifferent to him.

Here, Gallagher has only left the third bullet blank for students to complete.

As students become more familiar with their study of Shakespeare's work, provide fewer bulleted details on the given outline, requiring students to provide more and more plot points. For example, for Act III scene i, students might be given the following outline:

• 
  
• Tybalt and other rivals arrive. Tybalt wants to find Romeo.
• Romeo arrives. Tybalt calls him a "villain."
• The Prince enters and, enraged, stops the fight.
• Romeo says he now "loves" Tybalt.
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

By Act V, students are much more proficient at reading Shakespeare, so they may be asked to provide all of the bulleted statements. Remember, you may be differentiating for readiness, so not all students in your class would opt to use such scaffolded supports.

Again, don't limit reading instruction to the ELA classroom. This same kind of outline scaffolding could easily work with a chapter from a challenging textbook for a social studies or science course.