School administrators have the challenge of providing high-quality education in all subject areas. Along with this task, administrators must wade through countless programs, curriculums, while ensuring that student needs are met along with required state and local test scores. While the focus on reform has been in math and science, writing instruction has become a left behind subject that has recently generated attention as a need in schools. There remains minimal research on scaffolding and its influence on the writing skills of early elementary students. The Lucy Calkins writers' workshop model is one option for producing successful writers in the elementary grades. The purpose of this study was to discover how the component of scaffolding in the Lucy Calkins writing workshop model affected the writing progress of students in one first grade classroom in a Title I school in the rural section of a large school district located in the Southern United States. For this study, a qualitative framework was used based the theories of Vygotsky and Bruner. A qualitative descriptive case study was used so that detailed information about scaffolding from various sources in the natural setting of an elementary classroom. This descriptive case study focused on one first-grade classroom where the Lucy Calkins writers' workshop has been successfully implemented for four consecutive years. The classroom and teacher met the criteria set for the study with data gathered through classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, and student work samples. The study revealed that the components of scaffolding, used daily in the writers' workshop, have a positive impact on student writing skills. In addition, scaffolding also promotes student independence in writing. Furthermore, there seems to be a link not only in the writing progression of the students but also in state test scores in ELA. This would suggest further research into scaffolding, particularly in the area of scaffolding and test scores, would be beneficial in furthering this study in future research. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]