Teachers prompt in many situations across ability groups. We may call it hinting, or suggesting, but teachers often help students come up with the correct response.
In special education we recognize the value of prompting, and have named and measured the effectiveness of each form of prompt. The goal of the special educator is for the student to successfully execute the academic, life or behavioral skill without any prompting, the level which is referred to as “independent.”
Prompts go the full range, from Physical to Verbal. Physical can be as elementary as “hand over hand” where the teacher writes the letter, or screws the lid on, with their hand over the student’s hand. Verbal is perhaps the most common prompt, but may be less effective than gestural or modeling prompts because it is difficult to fade, and may lead to “prompt dependency.”
