Which strategy involves providing supports and fading them as mastery is achieved?

Which strategy involves providing supports and fading them as mastery is achieved?

• A. Contingent Teaching
• B. Authentic Learning
• C. Chaining
• D. Semantics

Answer: (A)

Providing supports that are tailored to what a learner can do right now and fading them as mastery is reached describes contingent teaching. In this approach, you start with the level of help the learner needs to perform the task—this can be prompts, modeling, or other scaffolds. As the learner demonstrates consistent success, you systematically reduce those supports and move toward independent performance. The pace of fading is guided by data on mastery, ensuring the learner isn’t pushed too far too soon and that guidance is removed only when competence is demonstrated. This strategy supports a gradual release of responsibility, helping students become autonomous learners across academic and daily living skills. Other approaches emphasize different aims, such as real-world context for tasks (authentic learning), teaching a sequence of steps (chaining), or focusing on meaning of language (semantics), rather than the structured, performance-based fading of supports.

Providing supports that are tailored to what a learner can do right now and fading them as mastery is reached describes contingent teaching. In this approach, you start with the level of help the learner needs to perform the task—this can be prompts, modeling, or other scaffolds. As the learner demonstrates consistent success, you systematically reduce those supports and move toward independent performance. The pace of fading is guided by data on mastery, ensuring the learner isn’t pushed too far too soon and that guidance is removed only when competence is demonstrated. This strategy supports a gradual release of responsibility, helping students become autonomous learners across academic and daily living skills. Other approaches emphasize different aims, such as real-world context for tasks (authentic learning), teaching a sequence of steps (chaining), or focusing on meaning of language (semantics), rather than the structured, performance-based fading of supports.