Kids are natural born question askers, they are constantly
asking questions! "How come birds can fly? Why do I have to eat my
broccoli? Where do ducks go when it rains? Who is that? What happens if I
forget my homework? When is it lunch time?" Since they like to ask questions, now is the
perfect time to introduce the Asking Questions reading strategy.
We as adults naturally ask questions as we read, even when
we are not consciously thinking about those questions - What is happening? I
don't understand what happened. Who is this character? I think ___ is going to
happen. What does this word mean? Why did the author end the book that way? etc.
As teachers we now need to be conscious of these questions
and teach our students how to ask questions before, during and after they read
a book. This unconscious behavior that we as adults do, can sometimes be hard
to "show" students, we now have to orally model our unconscious
questions. Even though this might be difficult for some to get used to, it is
an important part of reading. Not only does asking questions help the reader to
better understand the story they are reading but it can be applied to all
subject matters, like science, social studies, even math. It is a very
important strategy!
What is "asking questions" you ask? It is asking
questions about the story, or content, before during and after you read. Simply
put, it is getting your brain ready to understand what it is you are reading. (Pressley
and Afflerbach 1995).
This is what asking questions can do for a reader:
- Asking questions allow readers to understand why they are reading the text.
- Asking questions give readers a chance to make predictions and then later change their thinking.
- Asking questions allow readers to make connections based on things they already know (their schema).
- Asking questions give the reader a chance to use context clues to identify unfamiliar words.
- Asking questions allow the reader to decide if the content/story was good or not.
- Asking questions give the reader a chance to review important information from the text.
- Asking questions give the reader a chance to clarify any information they may not understand.
There are 3 different times to "ask questions", before you read, while you are reading and after
you read. Questions before you read require
the reader to look at the title of the book, the cover art, and who the author
is.
- The title should give some clues as to what the book might be about, maybe the character's name, a feeling, a setting, or even a problem.
- The cover art sometimes helps the reader to start with a visual as to the character, setting, feeling or even a problem.
- Both the title and cover art will also help the reader to identify the author's purpose for writing the text.
- Looking to see who the author is may help if it is an author the reader is familiar with. Knowing an author's style may give the reader some prior knowledge that could help with this story/text.
Asking questions while
you read helps readers to focus their thinking on what the story is about. The
reader will discover, wonder or question things like:
- main idea
- problem and solution
- characters and how their mood or feelings change
- plot or theme of the story
- what might happen next
All these questions keep the reader focused on the story,
which in turn, helps their comprehension.
After reading a
text/story students can ask questions that they still might be wondering about,
some examples might include:
- why a character did something
- feelings about the outcome of the problem
- why something happened the way it did
- why the author ended the story that way
This is also the time to reflect on the questions asked
before and during reading. The reader should decide:
- were their questions answered
- were they able to infer an answer once they completed the story/text
- do they need to research something further to answer their question
- are their questions ones that cannot be answered or don't need to be answered because it won't help with understanding the story/text
When modeling, or having students practice orally, here are
some question stems and linguistic patterns to use when "asking
questions": I wonder why__________.
I am trying to figure out __________. After I read I asked
myself________. What does this
word/phrase/sentence mean? Why did _____ do that? I wonder what is going to
happen next? I wonder why the author put that part in the story/text? I wonder
why the author ended the story this way? I have (still have) questions about this
part because ___________. I think the character is feeling __________
because_________. I think ________ is
_________ because__________.
Once students get comfortable asking questions every time they read - "good
readers always ask questions, before, during and after they read" - you
will want to stretch their thinking. To do this you need to ask that ever
dreadful Why? question in relation to what the author was thinking. For
example, Why do you think the author
chose this setting? Why do you think the author
ended the story this way? Why do you think the author chose to write the story in the 3rd person? Why do you think
the author _______? These questions don't necessarily have right or wrong
answers, but what they do is make the reader think about how the story could be different if the author chose to write it differently. This begs the question, would the book be better if...?
Teaching asking questions is all about modeling. During your
read aloud you will model how to ask questions. For example if you read
Beatrice Doesn't Want To by Laura Numeroff you might start asking - before you
read of course - I wonder what Beatrice doesn't want to do? Then, talk about
the cover art and what you see, the clues that are given and how you can maybe
guess what she doesn't want to do.
While reading you might ask yourself, I wonder why Beatrice
hates books so much? Or I wonder why Beatrice won't even look at a book at the
library? Or near the end, of the story I wonder if Beatrice will listen to the
story that the librarian reads?
When the story is done, you as the teacher are still
thinking and you model your last question as you close that book...I wonder if
Beatrice will like to read books now?
Once you have asked all your questions you will then model
your reflection on these questions. You will ask yourself did the book answer
my questions, do my questions help me understand the story better, do I have to
answer this question to understand the story better, etc.
Once you have modeled your questioning, it is time to let
the kids have a go. There are a few ways to do this. You can record their
questions as you read, you can give them paper and "wait time" while you
read so they can write their own questions or you can give them sticky notes to
write questions as they read their own book. It is important at the end of
their reading, to have the kids reflect on their questions, can they answer
them, are they important questions, do they help to understand the story, etc.
For many of my teaching packets I include a questioning page
or two. The pages in the packets allow the students to come up with their own
questions and then reflect to decide if their questions were answered or not. I
also encourage the teacher to extend the activity by having students work
together to try to answer the questions that the students came up with.
Here are a couple of links to some free questioning activities that I have created.
- Curious George by H.A. Rey - just click the picture to take you to post about this book.
- Mmm, Cookies by Robert Munsch - click the top picture to take you to post about this book.
This is a picture of a completed Asking Questions sheet. The student used this book to practice Asking Questions and then afterward I had her reflect on the questions she asked as well as orally answer her own questions.
Here is a freebie poster set to help you teach Asking Questions. You can download it in either my Teacher's Notebook or TpT store.
If you have any Asking Question ideas please feel free to share them :)
Happy teaching!
