Using a dialogic reading strategy in speech therapy

Level 1 - basic wh-questions

👉 These questions are focused on what can immediately be seen (or read) in the text. Level 1 also includes introducing new vocabulary. In this level, repeat and expand on the students's answers.

Example: Provide the picture icons and ask the student, "What is Sneezy wearing now?"

Level 2 - open-ended questions

👉 Level 2 questions are more open-ended to elicit the child's feedback. The adult encourages the child to share what they are thinking about and make meaning from the text. You can use prompts such as "tell me more about that" or "tell me about (character, picture), or "what else do you see?" etc.

Example: Point to the snowman and the picture icons and prompt the student to share about Sneezy, "Tell me about Sneezy!"

Level 3 - questions that introduce text features, story components & inferencing

👉 Level 3 questions are more advanced and introduce concepts like text features. These also include questions that distance the student from the text and connect the story to their own life. Encourage students to use vocabulary from the book.

Examples: While playing with the snowman and picture icons, prompt the student, "Who was the main character of our story?", "How would you feel if the children helped you?"

Completion Prompts: These are fill-in-the-blank questions

Use the sentence strip visual to prompt the student - "The old lady is eating..."

Recall Prompts: These are questions that require the child to remember aspects of the book

Use the picture icons on the iPad to ask the student if they remember what she ate before the spider - "What did the Old Lady eat before the spider?"

Open-Ended Prompts: These are statements that encourage the child to respond to the book in his/her own words

Use the picture icons to help support the student to share about a page - "What is going on on this page?!" (pointing to the tablet)

Wh-Prompts: These are who, what, where, when, and why questions. 

Use the Old Lady visual and the tablet to ask what they think the old lady will eat next - "What do you think the Old Lady will eat next?"

Distancing Prompts: These are questions that require the child to relate the content of the book to aspects of life outside the book

Use the picture icons to have the student identify what THEY would most/least like to eat - "What do you want to eat?" (prepare for a lot of laughs!!)

Prompt the child to say something about the book.

Adult: What happened to the little blue truck?

Child: He's in the mud.

Evaluate the child's response.

Adult thinks to self, "Yes, it was in the mud, but we can add more to that response."

Expands the child's response.

Adult: Points to the picture icon and moves the little blue truck - Yes, he got stuck in the mud!

Repeat the prompt.

Adult: What happened to the little blue truck?

Child: Pointing to the picture icon and moving the little blue truck in the mud - He got stuck in the mud!

Praise and Apply the child's response.

Adult: That's right! The little blue truck got stuck in the mud. Good job remembering the story! How would you feel if you got stuck in the mud?

Child: (Answers will vary). I would feel scared.