What term describes gradually removing support as a learner becomes more competent?

Prepare for the JCJC Human Growth and Development Test. Our quiz includes flashcards, multiple choice questions, hints, and explanations. Enhance your readiness and succeed!

This describes fading of scaffolding. When a learner faces a task, you provide support—modeling, prompts, hints, and guided steps. As competence grows, you gradually reduce those supports until the learner can perform the task largely on their own. This gradual withdrawal helps move the learner from assisted performance toward independence, which fits with the idea of the zone of proximal development: working with help just beyond what they can do alone, then fading that help as they improve. The other options don’t capture this process of gradually reducing assistance: positive reinforcement is about rewards for behavior, direct instruction is a teaching method that emphasizes explicit teaching, and independent practice is the end goal after scaffolds are removed, not the process of removing them.