The goal of this paper is to introduce an explicit protocol that preservice science teachers can use to improve the quality of the scaffolding (written and oral prompts) of their inquiry lessons. Scaffolding is an essential component of effective inquiry lessons because it keeps students focused on the target science content and divides the content into manageable bits of information, a process referred to as chunking. The significance of scaffolding for inquiry lessons and the theoretical framework, development, and implementation of the inquiry scaffolding protocol are discussed.