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Child Development & Early Education vocabulary · Cognitive Development

Scaffolding

Meaning in child development & early education, with examples

/ˈskæfəldɪŋ/nounCommon term

In child development & early education, scaffolding means: Support that an adult gives a child to complete a task they cannot yet do alone, such as hints, questions or showing one step, which is reduced as the child becomes more able.

In Turkish: iskele kurma, iskeleleme, destekleyici rehberlik

How it is used

Introduced by Wood, Bruner and Ross in 1976 and closely linked to Vygotsky's ideas. Used in lectures, planning and reflective writing. The verb is scaffold: 'I scaffolded her learning by asking questions.'

Example sentences

  1. With a little scaffolding, he finished the puzzle on his own.

  2. Breaking the task into small steps is a simple form of scaffolding.

Common collocations

  • provide scaffolding
  • scaffold learning
  • remove the scaffolding
  • verbal scaffolding
  • zone of proximal developmentIn Vygotsky's theory, the gap between what a child can do alone and what they can do with help from an adult or a more skilled peer.
  • sustained shared thinkingA conversation in which an adult and a child, or two children, think together over time to solve a problem, explain an idea or develop a story, each adding to the other's thinking.
  • open-ended questionA question with many possible answers, such as 'What do you think will happen?', which invites a child to think and talk rather than just say yes or no.
  • cognitive developmentThe development of thinking skills such as attention, memory, problem-solving, reasoning and understanding how the world works.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Cognitive Development

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