An instructor shows a class how to read a book to a group of children using the CROWD prompts and dialogic reading practices. (running time 3 min. 6 sec.)
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Instructor:
A Girl and her Gator. “This is the story of a girl named Claire who discovered a gator on top of her hair.” A girl named Claire had a gator…?
Participants:
On top of her hair.
Instructor:
On top of her hair. So that was a multi-word completion prompt. “Excuse me, she said, I usually share, but I’m not sure I want you staying up there. Oh just let me hang out, said the gator, Pierre, these views are amazing and I love the fresh air. But my friends will all whisper and gossip and stare, I can’t go outside with a gator up there.” What do you think “gossip and stare” means? So I stop to prompt. However your children respond to that, you want to scaffold and build on their language. If a child gives you an answer, a response that’s way off base, you want to quickly model an appropriate one for them and acknowledge that they responded but just provide support for that vocabulary. “The gator just smiled and said au contraire; you can do anything with a gator up there. You could go to the fair with a gator up there, or give your brother a scare with a gator up there, you could be a zillionaire with a gator up there.” Alright, so now I have my R prompt. I’m going to pause. I’m going to say: “What were some the things that the gator was trying to convince Claire to do?” So that’s a recall, so I want children to respond. We’re building short term memory and also building oral language and so I would want children to respond and recall some of the things that he was trying to convince her to do. “Or even eat an éclair, as long as you share, with that snippity snappity gator up there. I see what you mean, we could be quite the pair, said the girl named Claire to the gator Pierre. But I do have a question, there’s one little snare,” Now that’s another vocabulary opportunity. Embedded vocabulary support would just be inserting something like: “that means” or doing a quick synonym substitution. “’So there’s one little snare” – oh, that means problem, and just move on. “What should a girl wear, with a gator up there?” so that was her problem. Why was Claire worried about having a gator on top of her hair? My open-ended question prompt.