This qualitative case study examined two first-grade teachers' scaffolding within daily small-group reading instruction for students identified as having the most difficulty with reading and how the scaffolds supported students' reading. This research occurred in two first-grade classrooms at Springville Elementary School, a school in a rural town outside a larger city in the Southeastern United States. Participants consisted of two purposefully selected teachers and seven students they identified as having the most difficulty with reading. Data collection occurred over eight weeks and consisted of participant observations, field notes, teacher and student interviews, students' reading data, and instructional artifacts. Data analysis entailed the process of open coding using Miles, Huberman, and Saldana's (2014) method of First Cycle and Second Cycle coding and collapsing data into five overall themes. The first three themes focused on teachers' scaffolding forms, the small-group instructional focus, and students' engagement with text. The final two themes focused on how teachers supported students' abilities to determine unknown words and varied levels of support students required in the word solving process. The findings from this study align with prior research on teacher scaffolding forms, and highlight the importance of the instructional focus, opportunities for students to read text, and implementing various levels of support. These findings have implications for policy, practice, and 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://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]