Want to learn more or plan a lesson? Check out these links!
- Reading Comprehension Home
- Making Connections
- Fluency
- Determining Importance
- Inferring
- Metacognition
- Questioning
- Synthesizing
- Visualizing and Imagery
- Vocabulary and Word Identification
- Writing Across the Curriculum
Important UNCG Links
Questioning
- About Questioning
- Professional Books to help you develop lesson plans
- Children’s Books to use in lesson plans
- Some Helpful Web sites
Questioning:
Questioning is when students ask questions about the text they are reading and then proceed to look for answers to those questions. Questioning is a natural part of human learning. By asking questions, kids fuel their curiosity. Questioning is important because it fosters critical thinking skills among students. By using questioning as a teaching method, teachers can use kids' natural curiosity to teach reading comprehension. There are two broad categories of questions that students can ask: assessment questions and sincere questions. Assessment questions are questions that have known answers and are used to monitor students. Sincere questions are questions that we do not know the answer to and are driven to further our knowledge by researching the questions. In teaching there is a focus on assessment questions. However it is important to utilize sincere questions because these types of questions will be more likely to develop the students’ comprehension (Harvey and Goudvis 2000). Assessment questions are a tool used for monitoring students' reading comprehension. It is part of a process called reciprocal teaching. In this style of teaching there are four types of questions: right there questions, pulling it together questions, text and me questions, and on my own questions. A right there question is answered in the text. A pulling it together question is also answered by the text, but the reader has to find the answer in several different parts of the text. A text and me question cannot be answered by the text, but rather by a combination of what was in the text and what the student already understands. Lastly, an on my own question is a question where the answer is not in the text, but the text will influence the student’s answer (Schoenbach et al. 1999).
Reference:
Harvey, S. and Goudvis, A., (2000). Strategies That Work. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers
Schoenbach, R. et al. (1999). Reading for Understanding: A Guide to Improving Reading in Middle and High School Classrooms. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Quotes:
One of the most powerful cognitive tools for reading comprehension is questioning…
Framing questions about a text pushes students to read with greater purpose and, therefore, with greater focus.
1(Shoenbach, Greenleaf, Cziko & Hurwitz, 1999, p. 80)
Real questions stimulate interest, add motivation, and deepen understanding.
2(Maloney, A. as quoted in Hoyt, L., 2005, p. 111)
2Hoyt, L. (2005). Spotlight on comprehension: Building a literacy of thoughtfulness. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann Books.
1Shoenbach,R.; Greenleaf, C.; Cziko, C.; & Hurwitz, L. (1999). Reading for understanding: A Guide to improving reading in middle and high school classrooms. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.