Kindergarten Teachers’ Use of Writing Scaffolds to Support Children’s Developing Orthographic Knowledge

Orthographic knowledge is information about the writing system stored in memory that children draw upon to read and write. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the ways in which kindergarten teachers use verbal scaffolds to support children’s development of orthographic knowledge during writing instruction. This case study of four teachers over four weeks in a suburban school district included observations, semi-structured interviews, and surveys. Findings indicated that teachers regularly used a wide range of scaffolding strategies during writing instruction; however, teachers tended to use more high-support than low-support scaffolds. Teachers employed scaffolds more often in the independent writing context. This study represents a first step in closely observing the verbal scaffolds kindergarten teachers use to build children’s orthographic knowledge during writing instruction.