Teachers talk about scaffolding

Chrissie Perks

Brad Everson

Chrissie Perks Chrissie Perks comes from Victoria and was trained initially as a secondary teacher. She later studied further and completed an Arts degree before running school holiday programs for primary age children in inner suburban Melbourne. Before coming to Wulungarra, Chrissie worked at Papunya in the Northern Territory organising and running a pre-school. I was interested in scaffolding before I came here because when I was at Papunya there was scaffolding happening nearby. There was talk about it but I didn't really know a lot at that time. But not long after I came up here there was a big PD event and it was fantastic because they had Brian Gray and Wendy Cowey and it was actually hard, in a way, but I learned so much.

Chrissie with Yangkana Madeleine Laurel and students

It was just amazing because you find you are really working right down at word level. You are looking at the whole, but you are working at word level. There is so much about intentionality and the idea of making sure the child understands the author and what the author is doing. They learn to think like a writer and really see the purpose of words. I was interested in the spelling too and the way they do chunking. It made a lot of sense to me.

When I came to implement it, it wasn’t that easy. But I just kept at it, and building up the relationship with the kids was important. Gradually, they’re having a bit of success and starting to actually read and then they get excited about it. At that time, some days would be fantastic and other days not. I do have Wendy Cowey’s terrific, well worked-out notes to help.

These days, it usually goes smoothly and when it’s scaffolding time kids know what’s going to happen. I do a lot of talking and the kids seem to maintain their interest. Sometimes, towards the end of a book, they start getting a little bit edgy about it. But it's quite amazing, once you start talking about what the author is doing and how he's using this word and that word you just see them suddenly start coming back to you again.

I think it's given them a real belief in themselves as readers, because everything is in context and that’s the way they learn best.

When I was at Papunya I used to think that learning would happen very quickly if you had very small groups. But it won’t necessarily happen at all, because there’s still this enormous gap and it's language, it's all language. It's fascinating with scaffolding to really bring the kids into your understanding of language. You have to let them join in with all of that.

Brad Everson

Brad Everson is from the north coast of New South Wales, but has also lived and worked in Tasmania. Wulungarra Community School is his first teaching appointment. When I started here last year, I didn’t know a lot about scaffolding, although I had heard that there was a structure and particular steps involved. But as the year went on and there was PD it started to make sense and there was a lot more clarity. What helps is that once kids get familiar with the pattern they’re more comfortable and relaxed because they know what’s coming. Once that happens, behaviour problems just seem to disappear. They say that you need to hear a word sixty times in a foreign language before it becomes yours. I don’t know whether that’s really true, but one of the benefits of scaffolding is that you go over and over the transformation, reading it and saying it.

Brad, with Yangkana Madeleine Laurel and students

At first, I was thinking the kids might get bored but what actually happens is this. Sometimes, they’ll give you the impression that they know it, they know it and they want to move on. But if you do push on faster, you suddenly realise that they're not with you any more. So I have to be sure not to go too fast. In some ways it’s fighting your instinct but that’s how it works. Actually, you have to be confident enough to know where you’re going and to get there slowly. Then the kids don’t get bored because they are with you all the way.

I wasn’t a great English student myself and I think what was missing was that idea about what the author is thinking. Somehow I think I would have benefited a lot from trying to get inside the author's head and I think that's what we’re teaching with scaffolding. We’re bringing them into the whole area of what reading’s about, not just as a mechanical skill.

Ultimately I try to use scaffolding across the board and the bottom line is that that adds to the amount of literacy that kids are getting exposure to. I think from my experience that has been really good. Once the kids get hold of a chunk they really know it and the more chunks you can introduce them to, without trying to squeeze in too much, the better. They'll just hang on to them and they'll pop out those words and those things that they've learnt intensively when you don’t expect it. They're holding onto them because know them.