Early Literacy
The Role of Scaffolding
Becoming Literate Today
 More
complex than before
 It is not just “learning to read”
 Children must develop reading and writing
skills sophisticated enough for the workplace
 Oral language skills must also be effective to
articulate to others
 Visual skills must be developed to draw
meaning from illustrations
 Literacy must extend to growing technology
Literacy can be defined as a tool, a
way to learn about the world and
become fully engaged in life.
(Tompkins, 2001)
Emerging Literacy Keeps Emerging
(Strickland & Morrow, 2000)
From birth, children are
language users
 They move from
listening and speaking
to literacy skills in
reading/writing
 Language processes
develop together with
oral language:

Children engage in
conversation
 Have contact with
books
 Are exposed to a
variety of print
 Attempt to recreate
print for themselves

Developing Literacy
(Strickland & Morrow, 1989)
Complex sociopsycholinguistic activity
 Children begin learning
in the home
 Continue into the
community
 Then, the classroom
 Accumulated set of
experiences that lead
to formal literacy

A Theoretical Perspective
(How do children construct knowledge?)
 Lev Vygotsky
 Children attend to
what is going on
 Russian psychologist
around them
(1920-30)
 Motivated to learn
 Connections between
what they need
children’s relationships
and their cognitive
 Guidance/Practice help
development
them apply these skills
in their behavior
 Social Constructivist
Theory
 Social context is all
important in human
intellectual growth
Language is a critical bridge
between the world and
the child’s mental functioning:
 acquisition
of
language was the
most significant
milestone in a child’s
cognitive
development
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
 Learning
continuum
 Distance between a child’s ability to solve a
problem on their own
 The child’s “maximally assisted” problemsolving with adult/peer guidance
 Do not work outside the child’s ZPD
 Do not spend time on mastered tasks
 Nudge the child along the path to more
complex learning
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
Scaffolding
(Wood & Middleton, 1975)
 Involving
the child in joint problem-solving
with a peer or adult
 The child stretches to understand the new
information
 Helped by the adult who connects what the
child knows with the new concept
Scaffolding and ZPD
Highly interdependent
 Practical application:
 Establish rapport between
adult and learner
 Adult is sensitive to the
child’s responses
 Task is not “too tough or
too easy”
 Adult knows when to let
the child take the next step
 Adult lets the child control the
activity as much as possible

Imaginative Play – an important
component



Advances cognitive
development by requiring
abstract thought and
memory skills
Allows children to develop
sophisticated language and
social skills by reasoning
with others
Expressing different
points of view



Handling disputes and
persuading others
Fantasy and reality become
clearer
children with poorly
developed imaginations
have trouble with later
comprehension skills:
summarizing,
paraphrasing,
imaging, and creating
stories
Goes hand-in-hand with a constructivist
theory
“Teachers have to learn
to guide, not tell…to
create environments in
which students can
make their own
meanings rather than
be handed them by the
teacher…to not have
children search for one
‘right’ answer.”
(Airasian and Walsh, 1997)
Webbing Activity
Think of an activity for
a 3 or 4 year-old that
might be within her
ZPD
 How would an adult
scaffold the new
learning?
 Write specific
questions the adult
could ask
