Make Reading Interactive

Speaker: Welcome to the New Worlds Reading Initiative. This video will highlight dialogic reading. Dialogic reading means talking with your child while you read  or share a book together.

Having conversations as you read together has many benefits for you  and your child such as, giving them opportunities to build and use their vocabulary, helping them develop their comprehension skills, and increasing their ability to retell important information from the book. A benefit for you is that it will help you know how well your child understands the book as you read together.

You may be thinking, how do I have a conversation with my child while reading a book to them? In dialogic reading, the use of prompts will encourage your child to engage in a conversation with you. One way to prompt your child is to use CROWD. Each letter In CROWD describes a particular type of prompt.

C stands for completion. Completion prompts  ask your child to complete a word or phrase in a sentence. These types of prompts will help your child increase their listening comprehension, or the ability to understand text if it is heard  instead of read.

R stands for recall. Recall prompts ask your child to remember specific details or information about the characters and events in the book. These prompts help your child think about  what they have recently read.

O is for open-ended. Open-ended prompts encourage your child to provide  more than a yes or no answer. These prompts will allow you to have a conversation with your child  and give them an opportunity to use vocabulary.

W stands for wh- questions. Wh- questions are  all the prompts that begin with the words "who", "what", "where", "when", and "why".

D stands for distancing.  Distancing prompts ask your child to relate the book to something in their own life. These prompts  encourage your child to make connections between the text and their own life. The connections  will help them enjoy the story and increase their comprehension.

Let's watch a parent using the  CROWD prompts with their child. Child The Caring Me I Want To Be.

Parent: That's a lot of people. Look at that, what does that say? What does that say? 

Child: Hola. 

Parent: Good job.

Child: When our crossing guard had the flu, a bunch of daisies helped him feel better. 

Parent: What are daises? 

Child: Like flowers. The caring me I want to be.

Parent: Good job, now can you tell Mommy what are the different ways that she was caring in the book?

Child: Friendship? 

Parent: Friendship, so she was caring with her friends in what ways was she caring with her friends?

Child: By helping them. 

Parent: In what different ways did she help them?

Child: By tying their shoes. 

Parent: Tying their shoes.

Child: Making them feel happy. 

Parent: Making them feel happy, did she help anybody else in the book? 

Child: Her sister. 

Parent: What did she do for her sister? 

Child: Help her bake. 

Parent: Help her bake? What's the way that Jamiah can be the caring me she wants to be?

Child: I can do it by helping others. 

Parent: By helping others do what?

Child: Like crossing over the street. And I could do something for them. 

Parent: Okay, something like what?

Child: If someone pushes somebody I could help them up. 

Parent: good job okay are you the caring you want to be? That's awesome.  

Child: Kindness has a way of spreading. It starts with me, it's never ending. 

Parent: So, how is kindness never ending? What does she mean by that? 

Child: So it starts with her, then it goes all around  

Parent: And how does it continue to go all around? 

Child: Because  when she gives it to the first person then the  second person gives it to her then  the other person gives it to whoever then it keeps going. 

Parent: So if you're kind, and the other person can be kind? Okay I like that answer  

Speaker: The interactive reading guides that are  available for each New Worlds Reading Initiative book will give you some ideas for how to start conversations with your child using these different types of prompts. Happy reading!