Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I like the term scaffolding because it implies a temporary framework that's secondary instead of being a primary permanent edifice. It involves shifting responsibility to the student when they're ready and recognizing not all students need the same type of assistance.
I agree that in practice it can be confining and should only be used for helping a student with something they can't accomplish without assistance. It ties in nicely with Vygotsky�s Zone of Proximal Development.
Now, give me an achievement test that can accurately assess what a child knows and what a child is ready to learn - and then we have a really useful tool.
Setting aside the problems with the Preliminary Norms, the MAP test seems to be useful for this. There are individual reports which show skills and concepts to enhance; skills and concepts to develop; and skills and concepts to introduce. For Math, the skills are broken down by Goals: Algebra; Computation; Measurement and Geometry; Number sense; Problem solving; Statistics and Probability. Each of the Goals is broken down even further. Under Algebra there's Application of Algebraic concepts; Attributes, patterns and functions; and Understanding Algebraic Concepts.
My problem is not that it's being sliced and diced into pieces too small to learn. Instead, this information is available for what skills DD6 is ready to enhance, develop and introduce, but she's stuck doing the 1st grade curriculum because she's in 1st grade.
