What Is Prompting?
Prompting is the support a teacher provides to help a student perform a skill, on a hierarchy from most to least intrusive: full physical guidance, partial physical, modeling, gestural, verbal, visual, and independent. The goal of prompting is usually to fade — to transfer the skill to the student.
In plain language
Prompts are scaffolds, and the plan is always to remove them. That's why Spark's IEP data records each attempt as independent, prompted, or unable — the distinction is the data. A student moving from verbal prompts to independence on a goal is real, measurable progress.
Classroom example
Teaching hand-washing steps, the aide starts with full physical guidance at each step, then models, then points to a picture sequence, then says nothing. The goal log shifts from prompted to independent over weeks — visible in Spark's mastery trend.
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