The fifth-grade teacher in this video supports students, especially English learners, by providing sentence frames as a scaffold for responding. This gives learners the opportunity to answer questions and actively participate in classroom learning with less cognitive demand needed for writing. Sentence frames allow learners to focus on understanding the content, making connections, and developing a response by filling in the blanks of the sentence frame.
Sentence frames provide language for students to use when they are talking about and writing their answers – and offer a structure to formulate a response. They can be optional, so students self-select when and if they will use sentence frames in their responses; this builds confidence over time as students read, comprehend, and express their learning.
| Reflection Question: How could this strategy be used to teach academic discourse? |
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