Description of the Strategy

A prompt is a hint, a cue, or a direction that provides information to a learner about which response is correct in a particular situation. A prompt reliably occasions a desired behavior; that is, a prompt points the way to the correct or desired behavior option for the learner. For example, if students had difficulty remembering whether to add or subtract a group of mixed problems, then a teacher might make all addition problems red and all subtraction problems green. The color is a prompt that would help children distinguish between the two types of problems.

From a technical perspective, the term prompt comes from the field of behavior analysis and has a very specific meaning. In a three-term ...