Lev Vygotsky's revolutionary ideas have extended knowledge on the process of education--in particular, on mediating learning through language--for over 40 years. The zone of proximal development strengthened a new paradigm for learning and instruction, one which others, such as Bruner, formulated into the concept of scaffolding. Action research conducted in a reading methods course led to systematic restructuring based on Vygotsky's sociocultural perspective by means of an instructional sequence titled the Scaffolded Model. (Contains 1 figure.)