Interactional scaffolding in a first-grade classroom through the teaching-learning cycle

Many educators are tasked with the dual responsibility of facilitating emergent to advanced bilingual students' (EABs) content learning, while also simultaneously supporting students' ongoing literacy and language development. One pedagogical tool that has garnered growing attention in recent decades is the teaching-learning cycle (TLC). This article presents a study that took place in a first-grade classroom that contained a number of EABs. Working in collaboration with the classroom teacher, we designed English language arts (ELA) units based on the TLC and analyzed the ways in which the teacher used interactional scaffolding applying this pedagogical approach to guide instruction for her EABs. We focused specifically on how the teacher's interactional scaffolding moves engage students, and especially EABs, in the Detailed Reading, Deconstruction, and Joint Construction phases. We present study results, including excerpts of classroom discourse. This article demonstrates how the TLC can be used to facilitate a meaningful understanding of interactional scaffolding and its role in the TLC.