Sample A: Cover Page of Thesis, Project, or Dissertation Proposal

Prompts are not always necessary. If a child says something spontaneous about a
book, then follow that by evaluation, expansion, and repetition. This is just a PEER
sequence without the initial prompt. The child begins it instead of the adult.
There are five types of prompts that are used in dialogic reading to begin PEER
sequences. You can remember these prompts with the acronym CROWD.
C ompletion
R ecall
O pen-ended
W h-
D istancing
For completion prompts, you leave a blank at the end of a sentence and have the
child fill it in (e.g., Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are _____).
These are typically used in books with rhyme or books with repetitive phrases.
Completion prompts provide children with information about the structure of language
that is critical to later reading.
Recall prompts are questions about what happened in a book a child has already
read (e.g., What happened to the red engine?). Recall prompts work for nearly everything
except alphabet books. Recall prompts help children in understanding story plot and in
describing sequences of events. Recall prompts can be used not only at the end of a book,
but also at the beginning of a book when a child has been read that book before.
Open-ended prompts focus on the pictures in books (e.g., Tell me what‘s
happening on this page). They work best for books that have rich, detailed illustrations.
Open-ended prompts help children increase their expressive fluency and attend to detail.
Wh- prompts are usually what, were, when, why, and how questions (e.g., What
is this called?). Like open-ended prompts, Wh- prompts focus on the pictures in books.
Their primary function is to teach children new vocabulary.
Distancing prompts ask children to relate the pictures or words in the book they
are reading to experiences outside the book (e.g., Rotten Ralph did things he shouldn‘t
do. Have you ever done anything you weren‘t supposed to do?). Distancing prompts help
children form a bridge between books and the real world, as well as helping with verbal
fluency, conversational abilities, and narrative skills.
Remember that dialogic reading interactions are PEER sequences. You prompt
the child, evaluate the response, expand what the child has said, and repeat the
prompt/evaluate sequence to test what the child has learned. You start a peer sequence
with one of the types of prompts from the CROWD collection: completion, recall, open,
Wh-, or distancing. Remember that dialogic reading is not only the questions (the
prompt), it is also how you follow up the child‘s answer—the whole PEER sequence.
Once you have become accustomed to reading dialogically, you will become
skillful at constructing your own prompts. Books will contain hints for prompts on each
page and at the end of the book.
198