Road Builders by B. G. Hennessy

Prompts

Ask the child questions after the second and third readings of Road Builders, to start a conversation about the book. You can prompt the child on every page, using the questions below. If the child says something spontaneously about a picture, expand on it and ask the child to repeat it. There are questions for every one or two pages of the story.

1. What is this? (This is a big yellow dump truck.)
2. What is a dump truck used for? (Dump trucks carry away rocks and dirt.)
3. What are all these trucks used for? (They are all used to build
a road.)
4. Can you point to the green truck?
5. Who are these people? (These people will build the road.)
6. What is Buddy the boss looking at? (He is looking at a map that shows where the new road will go.)
7. What does the power shovel do? (The power shovel scoops and lifts the dirt.)
8. What do these trucks do? (The bulldozer pushes the dirt away. The backhoe digs holes.)
9. What is happening here? (The front loader is putting dirt into the dump truck.)
10. Which truck is the dump truck? (The red truck is the dump truck.)
11. What does the grader do? (It smoothes the ground.)
12. What is happening in this picture? (Cement is coming down a chute of the cement truck.)
13. Can you show me where the cement goes?
14. Which person is driving the dump truck? Which person is driving the paver?
15. What does the power roller do? (The power roller makes the road smooth.)
16. What does this truck do? (It paints stripes on the road.)
17. What does this truck do? (It lifts a sign.)
18. What are these workers doing? (They are putting up the lights.)
19. What do you see here? (Different kinds of cars and trucks are driving on the road.)
20. Let's name the cars together. (Shown are a moving van, a delivery truck, a motorcycle, a school bus, a taxi, and a camper.)
21. Which of these have you seen?
22. What kinds of cars and trucks can you see here? (There is a police car, a fire engine, and a car pulling a horse trailer, among others.)
23. What are the road builders going to do now? (They are going to build another road.)

Vocabulary

The words listed below come from the story and its pictures. As you page through the book, point to the pictures and ask the child to name the object or the action shown. This will help the child learn new words. You can use the words below, or you can choose words you think will interest your child. Below are words for every one or two pages of the story.

• dump truck, wheels, driver
• trucks, office building
• workers, map, hard hat, baseball cap
• power shovel, scooping, cab
• bulldozer, backhoe, dirt
• front loader, dumping, dump truck
• grader, smoothing
• cement truck, cement, shovel
• paver, asphalt, flag
• power roller, traffic cone
• stripes, paint, sign
• cherry-picker, streetlight, signs
• moving van, motorcycle, school bus, taxi, camper
• fire engine, police car, horse, dog, jogger
• flatbed truck