⭐ Scaffolded Questioning: Rebuilding Understanding in Real Time

A practical guide to using questions that diagnose, retrieve, and rebuild understanding - helping pupils find the answer without handing it to them.

💡 The Big Idea

Great questioning doesn’t just test what children know, it can support how they think.

In primary, pupils often have the knowledge, but struggle to access or organise it when put on the spot or when required to use multiple knowledge components at once. This is cognitive overload. This is where scaffolded questioning comes in. By layering questions, we can help children surface what they know, connect ideas, and move towards understanding.

👀 A Closer Look

When a child is stuck, our instinct might be to simplify the task or give them the answer. But often, what they really need is to be questioned down to the building blocks, and then questioned back up again.

Scaffolded questioning works best when we have clarity about three things:

🔍 The type of knowledge the original question requires (e.g. declarative or procedural)
🧱 The knowledge components needed to build a successful answer
🧠 Where the pupil is struggling: what they don’t know, can’t recall, or aren’t yet able to apply

Once we’ve identified the underlying gap, we can guide pupils through a simple questioning sequence to help them surface, reconnect, and rebuild their understanding step by step.

That sequence can be broken into three phases:

🔍 Narrow the Focus: Zoom in on the different knowledge components that underpin the question
🚧 Spot the Sticking Point: Diagnose where understanding has broken down or fluency is missing
🔁 Retrieve & Rebuild: Reactivate key knowledge and guide pupils back up to the original question

These aren’t just random prompts, they’re purposeful, accessible, and cognitively aligned to the child’s current need. They help learners reconnect with their schema and reconstruct their thinking, rather than guess or give up.

✏️ Example 1: Maths – Column Subtraction with Exchange

Original Question: What’s 63 – 27?

Sometimes, a pupil will struggle to answer a question like this, not because they don’t know the answer, but because they don’t yet have fluid access to all the knowledge required to solve it. That’s where scaffolded questioning can help.

👇 Let’s break it down:

At the top, we have the goal:

Accurately subtract 63 − 27 using the column method, applying exchange where necessary.

But to achieve that, a child needs to draw upon multiple knowledge components that sit underneath:

• Place Value Understanding – e.g. recognising that 63 is 60 + 3

• Subtraction Facts – fluently recalling 13 − 7 or 6 − 2

• Column Layout Knowledge – aligning digits correctly

• Exchange (Regrouping) Procedure – understanding when and how to carry a ten

• Vocabulary & Reasoning – interpreting terms like “carry” or “borrow” and explaining steps clearly

Each of these is a potential sticking point. And within each, there are smaller fragments of knowledge. For example, place value might include understanding base-10, partitioning, and recognising the value of digits depending on their position.

When a child is stuck, the goal of scaffolding questioning isn’t to give them the answer. It’s to support them in reconstructing the path to the answer by identifying which part of their schema might be missing or shaky, and guiding them back up.

🔁 Scaffolded Questioning in Action:

So a child is stuck on 63 − 27, and you’re not sure whether the issue is procedural (exchange) or factual (subtraction fluency). Instead of telling them where they went wrong, you use scaffolded questioning to uncover the misunderstanding and help them rebuild the knowledge themselves.

Here’s how the questioning might unfold: