I've been thinking about this article, especially how it relates to GS10. Accelerated Reading uses the term "Zone of Proximal Development", ZPD for short. The STAR reading assessment gives the upper limit of the ZPD, and the lower limit appears to be either the child's grade level, or lower.
In the 4th grade, GS10 made adequate progress in his ZPD, increasing his reading level by 2 years in the 1 school year. I call it adequate but his teacher probably thought it was very good. He had an insane amount of points for his reading goal, and made the goals each quarter.
By the teacher & the schools measure, GS10 had a successful year; after all, his ZPD increased by 2 grade levels over the period of 1 grade level in time. But I don't think that was an optimum use of that ZPD.
During the school year, GS10 read to score points. Sure, he read because he loves to read. But everything was selected based on 'is it in his ZPD and would he like the book enough to finish it so he could take the AR test'? (btw, how many of us pick books with that in mind? grrr) At the end of the 4th grade GS10 was fortunate to find a new genre, Greek mythology. He found Rick Riordans books in his teacher's classroom collection, I was so happy with his new interest that I contributed the final two books in that series to her collection, so he could finish the series and as a 'thank you' to the teacher.
Now let me tell about his long, lazy summer, and how I think it relates to the articles description of the ZPD, platforms, mentors, and hinges.
With no reading goals to meet, he was free to browse, nibble, taste, or devour any book he wanted. I was(am!) his mentor, building the scaffold(at the time I thought of it as a framework!) for advancing his education. I brought home books by the armload from the library. I expanded his interest in Greek mythology to Roman mythology, and how many of their gods were the same, but with different names. Because we are Christians, I linked that to the Apostle Paul, and his writings to the Athenians about their altar to the unknown God among the altars to the mythological gods. I brought home books on Pythagorus, so he not only knows how to find the hypotenuse of a triangle, he knows about the guy behind the Pythagorean theorem. He read about the Trojan horse, famous battles, the Roman aquaduct, architecture, ethnic foods, art, famous stories behind some common expressions(Nero fiddled while Rome burned, a Trojan horse, etc). He learned Greek & Latin words that form the roots for English words. Some books he devoured, some he browsed, some he nibbled. But all provided toward building a scaffold that will enable him to expand his knowledge further into different areas of interest. He commented several times about how he 'finds something that interests him, then that interest expands into lots of different interests'. Hehe, can you say, 'building a scaffold'?
Our daughter was his mentor for getting his dog ready to show. He won his showmanship class, where knowledge of the dog's physiology, conformation, and care were key to winning. So, that was a scaffold to build for animal husbandry, or even human physiology.
I read more at the linked article, and found a link to a related article about
scaffolding. I think we successfully did that this summer. Is there a way to measure our success? We can say we achieved the characteristics of scaffolding in his informal education this summer. Did it translate to a measurable achievement at school? GS10 went from a reading level of 8.9 at the end of May to a 12.8 at the end of August. I give credit to using the technique of scaffolding, acting as his mentor, and letting GS do what he does best, read!
And with that said, I'm going to copy most of it, email his teacher and tell her "no more AR point goals"! Any way, that is how I equate 'scaffolding' & ZPD's with GS10.
