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#WhosDoingTheWork ? What's In Your Scaffolding? | Burkins & Yaris

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Two weeks ago, Jan was with Kim in Florida, where we experienced the powerful advantages of face-to-face collaboration. Jan stayed in Kim's guest "suite," where the guest bathroom toilet runs unless you leave the handle up. After spending all day Monday with Jan trying to remember to leave the handle up but forgetting anyway, and Kim either reminding Jan or going into the bathroom and adjusting the handle herself, Kim left Jan a "tripwire."

Tripwires are reminders we set in place for ourselves (or that others set in place for us-as in the case with Kim's toilet) to help us remember to make the changes we want, particularly when those changes require behaviors that are the opposite of our habits. The intent to change something is rarely enough to follow through when in-the-moment muscle memory kicks in and we unwittingly default to our automatic behaviors.

Chip and Dan Heath write about tripwires in their book Decisive (Crown, 2013) and Joan Moser, in the lovely and smart foreword she wrote for our new book (Stenhouse, April 2016), suggests that the question- "Who's doing the work?"-is a tripwire for shifting the ways we scaffold students.

Thinking about this question, particularly if a teacher wants to shift some thinking work from him or herself to the student, can be helpful to evaluate the prompts we use during instruction. Typically, when a child encounters difficulty when reading, we are inclined to say things like, "Does that make sense?" or "What would sound right?" We worry that these prompts intervene too quickly, telling students what they need to do before they've had a chance to self-monitor and think for themselves about what they need to do. We are concerned that such well-intended interventions may be inadvertently creating roadblocks to independence by implicitly teaching students to rely on us, rather than on themselves, in the face of difficulty. Using the question "Who's doing the work?" as a tripwire reminds us of David Sousa's important premise that "The brain that does the work is the brain that does the learning," which, in turn, reminds us to begin our prompting by asking questions that require the most work of students. So, instead of asking, "Does that make sense?" we might say, "How can you check?"

To further support our efforts to remember to prompt students differently, we developed "The Prompting Funnel," which you can see below:

This graphic helps us to pause to remember that the more children do for themselves, the more they learn. The more they learn, the greater their potential for achievement. So, today, we end by encouraging you to think about the questions you use to prompt students. How can questions that require the least work of students be revised to require students to do more?

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Tripwires, The Prompting Funnel, and Letting Students Do the Work | Burkins & Yaris

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Two weeks ago, Jan was with Kim in Florida, where we experienced the powerful advantages of face-to-face collaboration. Jan stayed in Kim's guest "suite," where the guest bathroom toilet runs unless you leave the handle up. After spending all day Monday with Jan trying to remember to leave the handle up but forgetting anyway, and...

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We've all had that lesson. You know, the one where readers are gathered, everyone has their book in hand, and soon it becomes obvious the book isn't going to work for a reader. For a myriad of reasons, the reader begins to struggle with the text and before we know it, we're off to the rescue. You know the lesson: the one where we find ourselves repeatedly giving prompts that are all over the strategy map.

Yep, in these situations, we find ourselves suddenly doing anything in our power to help the reader to get through the text without having to abandon it in the middle of the lesson.

We've all had that reader. You know, the one that looks at us every time they run into a challenge in the text. Yep, the reader we all work not to make eye contact with during the lesson. The one who seems to be having difficulty using what is known to read an unfamiliar text. The one that before we know it we are off and running with reading prompts galore.

We've all made that move. You know, the one where our finger moves across the table and into the reader's book. Yep, that's always the moment where I know I need to rethink what I'm doing with a reader.

I'm going to guess we can all confess to times we've "over-scaffolded."

On the other hand, we all know the readers that have grown in confidence. We all know the books that have matched the next steps for readers, the ones that have given the right amount of challenge to grow forward. We all know these successes have come from carefully assessing our readers, reflecting on what they can do and what they need next, and then thoughtfully helping them build that next skill, strategy, or understanding.

What About Rescuing Readers?
More and more I read about the dangers of over-scaffolding. More and more I note the tweets and posts from teachers who are wondering if they should be scaffolding. I'm going to be bold enough to say that I worry a bit about this conversation. I, too, have read the concerns of Terry Thompson, Burkins and Yaris, and Vicki Vinton, among others. I get it. As someone who has spent much time beside emergent and early readers, worked alongside learners in Reading Recovery and reading intervention, I know I have, at times, been guilty of over-scaffolding.

At the same time, I also know that it took me many years (much training and many professional books) to learn to scaffold readers in a way that helped them work toward independence. I think we should use caution in this conversation. In education, we easily slip into an all or none discussion. This isn't really about scaffolding or not scaffolding, it's about being cautious of doing too much for our readers. As I've read Terry Thompson, Burkins and Yaris, and Vicky Vinton, what I take away is that I can be more intentional in the support I give the readers that sit beside me each day. Through thoughtful reflection and planning, I can precisely focus on a next step, while adjusting my expectations for readers to use what they've learned to read and understand a new text.

Thinking About Scaffolding
I've found all of this conversation fascinating. It has made me pause, rethink my practice, and clarify my thinking. It has made me step back to consider the support I give readers, as well as the ways I might be over-supporting them. It has made me wonder when to scaffold and when to step back, how to scaffold effectively, and what I should consider in tailoring support. Where is the line?

I, in no way, have this figured out. However, I'm wondering if we over-scaffold when we:

scaffold the text instead of the reader

give too supportive of book introductions

monitor for readers

teach to give prior knowledge to help readers read complex texts

prompt every difficulty instead of maintaining focus on the next step for a reader

prompt too quickly instead of letting a reader attempt to solve the problem

Scaffolding requires that we know our readers and consider their stage of development. Scaffolding should be:

based upon a reader's needs

specific

on the reader's edge or next step

thoughtful in the level of support of the prompts utilized

I hope you'll share your thoughts in the comments below. When should we scaffold? When should we step back? How can we more effectively scaffold our readers to help them take next steps? What is essential?

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Are We Over-Scaffolding? What's Important in this Conversation

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We've all had that lesson. You know, the one where readers are gathered, everyone has their book in hand, and soon it becomes obvious the book isn't going to work for a reader. For a myriad of reasons, the reader begins to struggle with the text and before we know it, we're off to the rescue.

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#WhosDoingTheWork Conferring Questions | Burkins & Yaris

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Filed Under: Tagged With: College and Career Ready, Burkinsandyaris, infographic, Ladder Questions, Ladder vs. Scaffold, questioning, reading conferences, reading workshop, WhosDoingTheWork, writing conferences, writing workshop Complete Literacy, Comprehension Strategies, critical thinking, Gradual Release of Responsibility, Growth Mindset, Independent Reading, Infographic, Instruction, Reading, Uncategorized, Who's Doing the Work, Writing

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As indicated by the subtitle, Who's Doing the Work? is about teachers saying less so students can do more. That piques a lot of curiosity. People wonder about what it means to "say less so students can do more" and while it is nuanced in many ways, in simplest terms, it means this: letting students struggle a bit.

Letting students struggle a bit is not a novel idea. Any parent who has ever taught a child to tie shoes or ride a bicycle knows that struggle is important to success. However, as teachers, letting go and allowing children to muck around a bit in their dissonance is not as easy. We wrestle with a paradoxical inner narrative around knowing that we need to let them struggle in order to learn but worrying that, if we let them struggle too much, children will become frustrated and quit trying. The story in our heads tells us that we will be the one responsible for shutting a child down, which is more than our kind-hearted, child-loving, committed-to-learning brains can bear. Our brains are fascinating organs and while this interesting little tale it tells us, we have to challenge it and ask, "Is this true?"

Recently, Kim worked with a struggling fourth-grade girl reading a level H-ish book about a boy who loved to play music. When the girl arrived at a word that was difficult for her, she paused and looked at Kim. Kim smiled and said, "Why are you looking at me?" That was the only cue the girl needed to look back at the word-cymbal-and try something.

She started to talk out loud. She looked at the illustration of several types of instruments below the text and said, "I know it's not 'drum.'"

She paused to think some more.

"I know it's not' tambourine'...or 'triangle.'"

Each time she made one of these declarations, she looked between the illustration and the word on the page. Then she placed her finger on the cymbal in the picture and paused. Kim could tell that she couldn't quite remember the name of that instrument, but rather than look at Kim and ask, "What's that called?", she looked at the illustration and back up at the word and back at the illustration. Very confidently she announced, "It's cymbal. That word is cymbal."

During this exchange, the "kindhearted, child-loving" part of Kim had to resist her urge to place her finger beneath the word, talk about soft-c, and coach her on how to sound it out. However, the "committed-to-learning" part of Kim trusted that she would recognize if the child was struggling too much struggle and let this her work through the tricky part. The result? A fourth- grade girl surprised by her own power, beaming with pride, propelled to try more and act agentively in the next encounter with a tricky part of a text.

For us, there is no greater feeling than the one we get when watching a learner become empowered-we call these goosebump moments-and we find that when we apply the principles from Who's Doing the Work, we get a lot them. When our brains threaten us with that old story about disenfranchising learners with too much struggle, we laugh because what we've learned is exactly the opposite-nothing builds confidence more than the success that comes on the other side of struggle.

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As indicated by the subtitle, Who's Doing the Work? is about teachers saying less so students can do more. That piques a lot of curiosity. People wonder about what it means to "say less so students can do more" and while it is nuanced in many ways, in simplest terms, it means this: letting students...

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12 Tips for Powerful Teaching in Guided Reading

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12 Tips for Powerful Teaching in Guided Reading

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Fountas and Pinnell Community Blog | Twelve Tips for Powerful Teaching in Guided Reading Lessons: A Teacher Tip from Fountas & Pinnell

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The following are some guiding principles that may help you get more power in your teaching.1. Notic

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Running Records-second read - Intervention - Fountas and Pinnell Discussion Board