An excerpt from Robert O’Brien’s Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (published in 1971 by Atheneum) suggests what goes on during the assistance stage. In this children’s novel, rats and mice are part of an experiment in developing super-intelligence and longevity. The animals learn how to read, and almost immediately discover the power of reading to learn. By learning to read, they learn how to escape their prison and how to set up a self-supporting community. The chapter entitled “A Lesson in Reading” describes how the rats became literate, and the first line in the next chapter, “In the Air Ducts,” is “By teaching us how to read, they taught us how to get away.” In the story, the scientists did not realize that they were providing assistance when they gave picture clues and practice with associated tasks. However, their assistance enabled the rats to learn and use their newfound knowledge to escape from their cages. We may not want our students to “escape,” but we want them to grow in knowledge and build on what they learn.