We must gesture the verb when we say it during PQA, all the time. We must constantly invite the kids to do the same. We can’t gesture the verbs in stories anywhere nearly as often as we can in PQA because there is so much other stuff going on in stories.
Hearing the action is supported by seeing it done and by doing it. The more time they see it hear it and do it, the deeper it sticks. We are vigilant to do all we can that can hammer the meaning of the sound deeper into the kids’ minds each time that it occurs, because verbs need all the help they can get to become acquired.
When we do this signing/gesturing, we often see the kids involuntarily signing the verb back to us, and sometimes with a mouth motion approximating the mouthshape of the verb which, I assume, is the first beginning of output. Those kinds of responses are enough for me to know, by the way, that the kid doing that kind of responding in class doesn’t need any testing. She is working full blast at acquisition when she is doing those things.
When to stop with the obsessive gesturing and sound associations? When the kids don’t need them anymore. They are merely scaffolding and they function like scaffolding, as we all know.
There is an entire category on gesturing on the right side of this page if you want to read more articles on this wonderful friend to us during PQA especially.