Download resource

Please enter your details to download this resource
Login
 

Enter your details to access this video

Or if you already have an account login to watch the video (if you don't you can register here).
Login
scaffolded learning
Author: Karen Wilson, SEND Specialist
Email share link LinkedIn share link Twitter share link Facebook share link
Approximate reading time: 1 minute

Progressing from single words to full sentences is essential for learners’ confidence and access to the curriculum. The first goal is to build vocabulary and meaning. Start with key vocabulary using visuals, repetition, and word banks. Next, support learners with sentence stems and substitution tables to build phrases and gradually progress to expanding sentences with adjectives and conjunctions. You can also help to reduce cognitive load by using consistent, visual supports, limiting choices, and repeating model sentences so learners can focus on meaning rather than decoding complex language.

Tip or Idea: To build confidence for SEND and early EAL learners, encourage them to ‘say it first, write it after’. This might be through role play, talk partners, listen and repeat activities, or recording their own speech on a device. 

Learning Village resource: Use our Scaffolding a Literacy Lesson resource to support learners from word to sentence level. Why not ask your learners to role play the conversations shown in Step 5 for a fun spoken activity?

Email share link LinkedIn share link Twitter share link Facebook share link

More articles by this author

SEND learner describing with adjectives

SEND support: Adjectives - Describing words

Created: Tue 13th Aug 2024

Being able to understand and use a range of adjectives can help learners to communicate successfully. Adjectives are essential for adding information or interest to their spoken or written language. They also enable learners to differentiate between items.

Teacher explaining comprehension skills to SEND learner

SEND support: Comprehension

Created: Wed 31st Jul 2024

SEND learners, particularly those with speech and language difficulties, can find comprehension more challenging for a range of reasons. Understanding of subject-specific vocabulary and inference can be difficult areas for some learners.

Tip or Idea: Start simple! Use single images or short sentences and talk about what is happening. Can your learner relate this to an experience they have had themselves?

washing hands

SEND support: Hygiene

Created: Wed 22nd Apr 2026

Hygiene is not only an essential topic for all learners, but one that can be made practical, visual, and repetitive, too - which is great for learners with additional needs. Teaching hygiene isn’t just a health topic; it builds essential life skills. When young people learn routines like washing hands and brushing teeth, they are developing independence, self-care, and personal responsibility as they move towards independent adulthood.

Back to Blog