Welcome to the How To Series. The topic for this How To is visual prompting. You will see examples of how to provide visual prompts to students. 
There are many different kinds of prompts. A visual prompt is a specific type of prompt that is a cue or picture that can help the student to respond appropriately. There are many examples of visual prompts. We might show the student a picture of scissors to let them know it is time to complete a cutting activity or a list of what needs to be done to help the student keep track of his or her assignments, for example. Visual prompts can be individualized to meet the specific student's needs in specific situations. Let's watch our first video. In this video you will notice a student is working on spelling. The teacher is going to provide a visual prompt which will help the student be successful at completing the spelling task. While you watch the video see if you can notice what the teacher does to provide the visual prompt.
Teacher: (writes CAR on board)
Student: (places the matching letters on the board)
What did you see? Hopefully you noticed that the teacher wrote the letters on the whiteboard for the student. The letters that she wrote served as the visual prompt the student needed to complete the spelling task. The student could then match the letters to the visual prompt the teacher provided. So in this instance the visual prompt was the letters written on the whiteboard. Now that we've discussed the visual prompt in this video, let's watch the video again. 
Teacher: (writes CAR on board)
Student: (places the matching letters on the board)
There are more ways to provide a visual prompt. Let's watch a couple more videos. While you are watching these videos, see if you can spot the visual prompt. Specifically, look for the following:  What does the teacher do to set up the visual prompt? What is the visual prompt that's provided? And how does the student respond to the visual prompt? Is he or she more successful with the prompt?
Teacher: Here are a list of activities that we are going to do today. So far, Timothy, which one have we already done first? Read it.
Student: Warm up.
Teacher: We've already done the warm up. So Karissa is going to replace it, since we've already done it, with a green popsicle stick and everybody's going to have a chance to do this today. So Karissa, why don't you switch that one out for us since we've done our warm up. And Lizzy, what is next on our list of things to do today?
Student: Teacher time.
Teacher: Teacher time!
Teacher: Dwight, what are you going to eat for lunch?
Student: My peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And I'm going to sit with Whitney and I'm just sitting with my friends. Sitting with my friends.
Teacher: That sounds like fun, to sit with your friends.
Student: With my friends. 
Teacher: And which friends are you going to sit with?
Student: Whitney. Well, I just wanted to sit with her and Rachel.
Teacher: Mm hmm. 
Student: (unintelligible) Like, one of the tables is for her and with big Will.
Teacher: (passes the student a card)
Student: And have a good day.
Teacher: Okay, see you later. I'll see you in the cafeteria. Have a good day.
Teacher: Let's find out what we're going to do next. Okay, Tom's choice is all day (crosses it off list). Would you like to go to the gym or play with markers (writes them on the list).
Student: (crosses out gym)
Teacher: Okay, markers. Let's go play with the markers then. Nice choice.
Teacher: (shows student a timer)
Student: (presses on a selection on menu board)
Teacher: Yes, you may. Go ahead. 
In all four videos that you watched, you should have seen that the teacher provided a visual prompt so that the student was better able to complete the task at hand. The visual prompt helped the student to be more successful.
Now that you have seen some examples of providing visual prompts, remember: Visual prompts are a cue or picture that helps the student to respond appropriately. And visual prompts can be a quick and easy support for students to be more successful.