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Building Bridges, Not Barriers: Preparing Teachers to Scaffold Complex Texts in Tier 1 Instruction
By Mandy L. Wallace
Document: Article
Introductory Paragraph: When struggling readers face demanding texts, teachers may respond by simplifying materials or waiting to support students during intervention. While well-intentioned, these practices deny students opportunities to learn from grade-level content when it matters most, during Tier 1 instruction. Simplifying texts comes at a steep cost: limited growth, narrowed knowledge, and weakened motivation (Allington, 2013). Recent scholarship strengthens this argument. In Leveled Reading, Leveled Lives, Shanahan (2024) traces how decades of “instructional-level” theory of matching students to texts below their grade level has unintentionally limited literacy achievement and equity. He argues that teachers should maintain grade-level text complexity while varying the scaffolds that support comprehension, vocabulary, and motivation. This echoes his earlier work (Shanahan, 2020), which emphasizes that the solution is not to lower the text but to raise the level of instructional support so that all students can engage successfully with challenging materials. Together, Allington (2013) and Shanahan (2020, 2024) demonstrate that equity in literacy instruction depends not on simplifying materials but on strengthening teacher expertise. When teachers design purposeful scaffolds that maintain text complexity, they create the conditions for meaningful engagement and rigorous comprehension for every student. To disrupt this cycle, we must begin with teacher preparation. Candidates need more than theory; they must experience scaffolding as learners, recognize it as essential to core instruction, and confidently apply it in their fieldwork and ultimately their own classrooms so that every student gains access to complex text.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33600/IRCJ.54.1.2025-2026.23
Page Numbers: 23-28
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