The Consequences of Negative Scaffolding for Students Who Learn Slowly—-A Commentary on C. Addison Stone's “The Metaphor of Scaffolding

Abstract

In this commentary, we discuss the outcomes of effective scaffolding, the processes by which successful scaffolding works, and consider implications for children with learning disabilities or below-average academic progress. Scaffolding aims at transferring responsibility for task accomplishment from a competent person to a learner. In the context of children with educational problems, we explicate our view that current practices in many schools may result in a kind of reverse-scaffolding, preventing rather than encouraging transfer of responsibility for tasks.