You’re halfway through a lesson, and you can see it happening.
Sure, a few students are right there with you, tracking the text, making connections, jumping into discussion. But others are stuck on a single paragraph, rereading without quite getting it. And a few haven’t found a way in at all.
It’s the same text. The same task. But very different levels of access.
Students bring different background knowledge, language resources, literacy experiences, and familiarity with different genres, so the same text may create different challenges and call for different entry points.
Because you’re not just asking students to read. You’re asking them to think, analyze, discuss, and communicate at grade level. And for some students, including those encountering unfamiliar language, concepts, or text structures, getting to that thinking may require additional support.
That’s where scaffolding comes in.
Done well, scaffolding doesn’t lower expectations. It helps students access challenging texts and tasks while keeping the intellectual work firmly in their hands.
The HMH Text Scaffolder helps generate possible entry points into complex texts, while teachers decide which supports fit the lesson, the learning goals, and the students in front of them. Not every student needs every scaffold, and not every generated support should be used. Teachers remain the instructional decision-makers.
Text scaffolding can help expand student access to text without lowering rigor or altering the original text.
What text scaffolding looks like in the classroom
Text scaffolding is the practice of helping students access a complex text while preserving the thinking the text requires. Rather than simplifying, shortening, or replacing the text, teachers identify the specific features that may create barriers to comprehension and provide targeted support that helps students engage with the original text independently over time.
This scaffolding begins with the text itself. Teachers look closely at the language, structure, concepts, and demands of a passage and ask:
- What makes this text challenging?
- What are students expected to understand, discuss, or produce after reading?
- Which students may need additional support to access that thinking?
For example, students may need scaffolding because a text:
- Contains unfamiliar academic vocabulary or domain-specific, figurative, or idiomatic language
- Includes complex sentence structures
- Assumes background knowledge students may not have
- Organizes ideas, perspectives, or time periods in unfamiliar ways
Once teachers identify those potential barriers, they can provide purposeful supports that help students make meaning from the text without doing the work for them.
Text scaffolds might include:
- Previewing key vocabulary necessary to understand the central idea
- Defining unfamiliar terms within the text
- Embedding translations for selected words or phrases
- Highlighting cognates and false cognates
- Supporting figurative language and idiomatic expressions
- Breaking longer passages into manageable chunks
- Generating guiding questions that focus students' attention on key ideas
- Drawing attention to how ideas are organized within the text
The strongest text scaffolds connect directly to the lesson goal. A vocabulary support is not an activity, but it exists to help students participate more meaningfully in a discussion, complete a writing task, analyze a theme, or demonstrate understanding of the text.
As students gain confidence and independence, those supports can be adjusted or removed. Text scaffolding makes a complex text more accessible while preserving the rigor, productive struggle, and critical thinking that lead to learning.
Supporting multilingual learners through responsive access
Multilingual learners bring a wide range of language resources, literacy experiences, background knowledge, and familiarity with different kinds of texts. Some may engage independently with a text’s central ideas while benefiting from support with a particular sentence structure, genre feature, cultural reference, discussion routine, or written response. Others may not need an additional scaffold for that lesson.
The Text Scaffolder can help teachers draft possible supports, such as vocabulary previews, sentence starters, discussion prompts, or initial feedback. Teachers then decide which supports match the text, learning goal, and students’ specific strengths and needs.
Depending on the lesson, a purposeful scaffold may help a student:
- Unpack an essential term or complex sentence
- Recognize how ideas are organized
- Connect relevant background knowledge
- Rehearse ideas before discussion or writing
- Use the language needed to explain and support an idea
Teachers do not need to use every available scaffold. Instead, they can select the support that helps each student engage more fully with grade-level content while keeping the thinking with the learner.
Thoughtful scaffolding can also help ensure that instruction measures students’ understanding of content, not just their familiarity with a particular language demand or genre feature. Language development is not separate from learning. When supports are connected to the text and task, they can help students build language while actively engaging with grade-level content.
Example: If students are reading an informational text with several unfamiliar academic terms, a teacher might use the Text Scaffolder to generate vocabulary support. Instead of previewing every unfamiliar word, the teacher might choose the one or two terms students need most in order to understand the central idea. Students can then use context, discussion, and rereading to work through the rest.
How the Text Scaffolder supports instruction
In HMH’s AI Tools, the Text Scaffolder is designed to support your instruction by helping you create entry points into complex texts while keeping the intellectual work in place.
The tool can help draft possible supports, such as vocabulary previews, guiding questions, comprehension prompts, differentiated starting points, and language supports. But the most important decisions remain with the teacher.
Before using a generated support, consider:
- What specific barrier does this support address?
- Does it connect to the lesson goal and final task?
- Does this student need this scaffold?
- Will it support meaning-making or interrupt the flow of reading?
- Does it preserve the thinking students need to do?
HMH AI Tools can accelerate the first draft of possible supports, giving you more time to decide which students need an entry point, which support aligns with the lesson goal, and when that support can be adjusted or removed.
As Andrew Goldman, EVP of HMH Labs, says, “The role of the AI is to provide the science, in a way that enables the teacher to maximize their art.”
In other words, AI can help generate ideas and instructional supports, but teachers remain responsible for the decisions that shape learning in their classrooms.
If you’re thinking about where AI fits into your practice more broadly, "Using Artificial Intelligence in the Classroom: What Teachers Should Know" offers helpful examples grounded in everyday teaching.
What makes the HMH Text Scaffolder different
Our approach begins with two simple truths: classrooms are complex, and teacher time is limited.
What teachers typically don’t need is another tool to figure out how to implement and use. What’s more helpful are tools designed to draw from the text, lesson, and instructional goal, giving teachers a more relevant starting point.
At the same time, more teachers are experimenting with teacher-built chatbots. But that flexibility also comes with tradeoffs. Without clear instructional guardrails, outputs can be inconsistent or off-target, and refining them can take more time than expected.
That’s part of what shaped how HMH AI Tools were designed. Unlike general-purpose AI tools that require teachers to build context from scratch, the Text Scaffolder is designed to work alongside high-quality instructional materials. Because the tool draws from the text, lesson, and instructional goals, it can generate more relevant supports from the start.
Just as important, it can help teachers avoid over-scaffolding. More support is not always better. A long list of definitions, questions, or annotations can interrupt reading and distract from the central idea. Teachers can select only the supports that serve the lesson.
For example, instead of previewing every unfamiliar word, a teacher might choose the one or two words students need to understand the central idea and allow them to work through the rest using context.
The result is less time spent crafting prompts, refining outputs, and checking alignment, with more time left to focus on instructional decisions that meet students’ needs. Instead of starting from scratch, you’re building from a strong foundation and creating more intentional ways for students to access the same text.
Scaffolding is not changing the intellectual work, but creating intentional entry points that help students move toward greater independence.
Practical ways teachers can use the Text Scaffolder
AI isn’t valuable because it replaces your work. It’s valuable when it helps you do that work more efficiently.
Depending on the text, task, and students, you might use the Text Scaffolder to:
- Draft vocabulary supports more quickly
- Create different entry points into the same text
- Generate initial prompts, annotations, or feedback
- Support figurative language
- Identify cognates and false cognates
- Chunk and space complex text
- Build language supports for discussion or writing
As you review the output, ask:
- How does this support prepare students for the lesson or end-of-unit task?
- Does it address a specific need I have observed?
- Could a simpler prompt, rereading, or peer discussion provide enough support?
- What should I adapt before using this with students?
- When can this support be reduced or removed?
The most important step is still yours. You decide what to use, what to adapt, and what to leave out based on the text’s demands, the learning goal, the final task, and what you know about your students.
The strongest results come when you treat AI output as material to review and adapt, rather than a finished product.
As Goldman shares, “AI is not a shortcut. Take what it gives you and make it better.”
AI in service of good teaching
When thoughtfully applied, AI can help make strong teaching more sustainable for educators who already balance countless instructional demands.
For text scaffolding, that means staying focused on a few priorities: preserving rigor, improving access, supporting language development, reducing time spent on routine tasks, keeping teachers in control, and helping students move toward greater independence. The Text Scaffolder can make it faster to generate possible entry points into a complex text. Teachers then decide which supports align with the lesson, which students need them, and when those supports can be adjusted or removed.
Used this way, AI helps expand access while keeping instructional purpose, productive struggle, and student thinking at the center.
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Try the Text Scaffolder to help your students access complex text, build comprehension, and engage confidently with grade level content.
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Help every student access complex text without changing the author’s work
