Ep 56: Asking Questions was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best audio automated transcription service in 2021. Our automated transcription algorithms works with many of the popular audio file formats.
Hey, teachers, if you have a classroom and a commute, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Rachael, and I want to ride along with you each week on your ride into school. This podcast is the place where busy teachers who want actionable tips, simple strategies and just want to enjoy their job more. Let's go.
If there's anything that my six year old daughter knows how to do very, very well, it's to ask questions. Some days it seems like the questions are endless. Many days I find myself driving around in the car with her. Maybe we're running errands or I'm taking her to school or picking her up from school. She starts asking questions and it doesn't ever seem to stop. As much as I would like a little peace and quiet every now and then when we're riding around in the car, I know that questioning is actually a really, really good thing. It's how we learn about things. It's how we learn to think about things. It is a good strategy for figuring out the world.
When it comes to reading, questioning is a great reading strategy that we teach our students to help them engage with the text. It helps the reader to clarify what he or she is reading, to better understand the text, and ask good questions. It is a way for students to monitor their own comprehension while reading. Struggling readers, however, approach reading as a passive experience. This means that they read the words on the page with the idea that the meaning of the text will reveal itself if they just read enough words. However, good readers challenge the text by asking questions as they read. They might ask questions like "Why did they say that?, What do they mean by that?, I wonder what they are doing there?, How did she do that?, and Why am I reading this?" When taught how to ask questions, students learn that they can increase their comprehension. Of course, it's our job to give them that strategy in the background of how to use the strategy so that they can be the most successful at using it.
Now, if you're just joining the podcast and you haven't been around for several months, you might have missed that I am doing a series here on the podcast all about teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies. This is actually the 4th strategy that we are covering. You can go back and listen to all of the past episodes related around this topic. It begins at Episode 41 where I give you a really big deep dive into an overall understanding of how to teach and introduce Reading Comprehension Strategies to your students. Now, I'll just mention real quickly here that I subscribe to the teaching practice that you should be introducing, using, and modeling of all the Reading Comprehension Strategies at the same time. This means that you use them interchangeably and you use the ones that make the most sense in the particular text or the portion of the texts that you're reading. I don't think that it is a best practice to only teach one Reading Comprehension Strategy at a time and only focus on that one before moving on to the next one. I believe we should give students all the tools in the toolbox and then we can go back and isolate strategies as we need to so that students know how to effectively use each tool in their Reading Comprehension Strategies toolbox. In Episode 41, I really go into why I think that is important and how to do it effectively. Of course I know that, as the school year goes on, you will notice that students need some specific instruction on individual reading strategies. It is totally okay to do that. That is why I have designed a Reading Comprehension Strategy podcast series to help you teach those individual strategies to your students.
We've covered three so far. We covered how to teach making connections. We talked about how to teach visualizing. We also did a podcast episode all about how to teach making predictions. You can find those in Episodes 42, 47, and 51. Of course, I'm will link to all of those in the show notes, but I would suggest going through the entire series. Then as we work through this series, we will be wrapping it up in the spring as we continue to work our way through each strategy. I encourage you to listen to all of them and really get a good grasp.
Now, I mentioned today we are going to focus on how to ask questions while you're reading. Let's first all get on the same page with some basic information that we all need to know before we teach the Reading Comprehension Strategies of asking questions while reading. We know that asking questions will provide students with purpose for reading. As they read, students will seek answers to their questions for a deeper meaning of the text. We can ask questions for a variety of reasons. We can ask questions to clarify meaning when we ask things like, "What does this word mean? Why is this happening? What am I learning?" We can also ask questions to understand the characters and events better. Things like, "Why did the character do that?, Why did that happen?, What would happen if?" We can also ask questions to understand the author's intent or we can ask questions that will actually lead us into making a prediction, a question like "I wonder if blank will happen'. All of these are different types of questions that a reader might ask while reading. Good readers actively ask questions before, during, and after reading. Before reading, students might ask themselves, "What's the story going to be about?, What they might learn?, or what they already know about the topic during reading." Students are going to pay attention to the clues in the text to spark questions since each student has a different background knowledge that they're bringing to the text. Each reader will likely wonder different things about the text. That's great! We want to encourage that.
While reading, it's important to remember that the reader's questions are going to be constantly evolving. As questions are answered, new questions will arise. Monitoring and keeping track of the questions that we have will increase comprehension. It's also important for students to stop and ask questions when something doesn't make sense. We're not just asking questions to help further our understanding about what's going on, but we're also stopping to ask when something doesn't make sense. They might need to clarify a meaning of a new word that they're seeing or seek understanding for a confusing part of the story. These clarifying questions will help students to self monitor their comprehension. We want to teach them to do this. We also have to help students to ask relevant and logical questions. I talked a little bit about this when we were discussing the making connections strategy, that we want the things that the students are thinking about to be relevant and logical to the text that they're reading currently. The purpose of asking questions is to enhance comprehension. So therefore, any question that the student asks should stem from the main ideas of the text and not just be loosely related to the topic. You'll often find that your struggling readers will kind of grasp for straws here when it comes to asking questions. They know they should be asking questions, so they just choose any question that's loosely related to the topic. This takes some instruction and some time for students to get an idea of what kinds of questions they should be asking that will best enhance their understanding of the text.
Now, after reading, we have students evaluate their questions. Of course, they're going to be evaluating them all along once they find answers to their questions but they should also be doing some time of reflection at the end of their reading to ask themselves how their questions were answered and what they learned from the text. They might also realize that not all of their questions were answered, and that's okay too. In these cases, students might be required to actually infer the answers based on the text and the background knowledge. Again, this is why it's so important that students have a basic understanding of all the reading strategies so that they can pull on the ones that they need at that time. If they're getting to the end of a story and they've asked questions that don't have specific and clear answers from the author, they're going to refer to another reading strategy, like inferring to come up with their own answers.
The final thing that I think we all need to keep in mind before we teach the reading strategy of asking questions is that it's important for students to ask different types of questions that will improve their comprehension. This can be referred to as thin versus thick questions. Here's what I mean. Thin questions are surface level questions that usually can be answered by looking in the text. While thick questions, on the other hand, require students to use their own knowledge to dive deeper into the text. Answers to thick questions can be subject to interpretation. They use evidence from the text, but they also draw on the personal experience of the reader. The thin questions are those questions that are going to help us clarify something in the text. Sometimes teachers refer to these as 'write their answers', so something that's going to help maybe clear up a misconception or misunderstanding before moving on into the story. Ideally, we want students asking both questions. We want them to ask those 'thin' questions when something's not making sense and they need to go back, reread, and find a quick answer. We also want them asking those more abstract, more thick questions that will really get them to be thinking about the story on a deeper level. All right. Hopefully that all gets us on the same page when it comes to teaching the questioning strategy. We want students to ask a variety of questions. We want them to ask questions before, during and after reading. And we want them to be asking relevant, logical questions as they're reading.
Let's shift gears into some activities that you can use to introduce the questioning strategy to your students. As with most things, when it comes to teaching, it's helpful to start with the concrete and move more toward the abstract. A great first activity to use when introducing the question strategy is called "What's in My Bag?". It's very simple to prepare and use in your classroom. To start, you're going to need to place an ordinary object in a paper bag, something that they can't see through. This item could be something like a comb, a toothbrush, or a pencil. Something that, you know, the student is going to be able to guess. To begin, you're going to show your students the bag and encourage them to ask open ended questions to gather clues. For example, they might ask, "what's the item used for?, Where do you use it?" Rather than, "Is it an apple?" Or directly asking what the object is. Students will realize that they'll get a better understanding of what the object is if they ask open ended questions, rather than just randomly trying to ask and guess what the object is. So, for example, if the item in your bag is a cheese grater, your students might ask the question, "Where do you use this item?' Your answer would be "in the kitchen". So now students have to think, okay, what items are in the kitchen? Then their questions get more refined, more specific and more direct as they gather more clues. Then we can relate this activity to real reading when we ask good questions and not just random, irrelevant and indirect questions. We're going to refine our thinking as we get clues. Students will learn that finding answers to our initial questions will often lead to more questions, which leads to deeper understanding. In the case of the "What's in My Bag?" activity, a student would change their next question based on their previous question. In the same way, when we're reading, an answer to one of our questions can dictate what our next thought or question might be. Through all this, asking questions is helping students engage with the text.
Once you've done this initial introduction activity, you can move into using this strategy with a book. You'll first want to model using it with a read aloud so be sure to choose a book that lends itself to asking really good questions. Begin by modeling the questions that you have before you read. You might choose to jot these down on an anchor chart. You can divide your anchor chart into three columns. Questions I have before I read. Questions I have during reading. And questions I have after reading. Like I mentioned before, the questions you have before reading might stem from the title, what you already know about a topic, author, or even the illustrations found on the cover or inside the book itself if you do a quick picture walk. One quick tip here, I like to have some visual prompts for my students to refer to with any strategy. In the case of asking questions, I like to have a little poster next to where we're working together that have different prompts that students can use to kind of spark using the strategy. Your questioning poster might have the prompts. I wonder..., how come? Why? What is? And then students can use these as stems for asking their own questions. Another tip that I always like to give when introducing a new reading strategy with an anchor text is to always have prepared ahead of time the questions that you're going to be modeling for your students. You can jot those down on Post-it notes and put them right in the text. Then when you get to that portion of the text with your question, you can share with your students the question that you had, and you can even put that Post-it note up on the anchor chart so you don't have to take time to rewrite it with students. It just helps to save time and helps to keep you organized and ready for modeling this strategy effectively to your students.
Now, when you do stop to ask yourself a question, as you're reading, you want to point out in the text what sparked that question and explain your thinking. Here's an example. You might say something like this. "When I read blank, it made me wonder why blank because..." You're going to help use that little fill in the blank prompt to help explain to your students that something in the text made you pause to ask a question. It made you wonder something. Using this little formula, "When I read blank, it made me wonder why," is the perfect way to keep students connected to the text to keep their questions relevant and logical. Now, you might not have the answers right then and there so you have to tell students that sometimes your questions will be answered later on in the book, while others you'll have to infer the answer based on your knowledge. It's okay that right then and there you don't have the answer, but as you're reading, you're going to be seeking and searching out that answer. This is why it might be a good idea to actually have your students write their questions down as well when they're practicing the strategy on their own so that they have a visual reminder of what their questions are. That way they know to be looking for those answers and for clues that they can use to infer the answers should they need to.
Now, after you're done reading, you're going to review the questions that you previously had. This is a great way for you to refer back to your anchor chart and to see which questions you had. Now, of course, as you're reading, if you do find answers to your questions, you can refer back to your chart and say, "Oh, there is an answer to my question that I was wondering," so that students know that your mind is going back and forth. You're asking questions, you're finding answers, and then you're asking new questions. Now, it's important to note here that you're not going to cover all there is to cover about how to ask questions in one mini lesson. Keep in mind here that the things that I'm talking about might be broken down into several different mini lessons. Your first mini lesson might just be that "What's in My Bag?" activity. The second mini lesson might give some simple prompts like the "I wonder, how come, why, and what is?" to help get their mind thinking. You might also introduce the anchor chart of the before, during and after reading. Then maybe in your 3rd or 4th mini lesson, you might start introducing the concept of thick and thin questions.
Over in the show notes, I'll put a really great anchor chart that you can use with your students to help them decipher the difference between thick and thin. I'll just verbally tell you what's on my anchor chart and then I encourage you to go over to the show notes at classroomnook.com/podcast/56 to really see it. My chart would say at the top "Asking questions". Then one arrow pointing to thick questions and one arrow pointing to thin questions. Under the thick questions section of my poster, it says something like this, "The questions make you think and help you analyze the story for deeper understanding". Your questions might start with 'why and how'. Of course, these questions are going to need evidence from the text to answer, they make us think, and they could have multiple answers. Thin questions, on the other hand, help you clarify and fix your understanding of the story. The where, the when, the what and the whose are these types of questions. You also want to point out that these are easier to answer. The answers might be right in the text. They're usually yes or no questions, and they typically just have one answer. Again, go over to the notes, see this anchor chart, and what it looks like so that you can use it for your own purposes as well. When you're introducing thick and thin questions to your students during your mini lesson, you're going to have students determine the questions that you're asking, whether they are thick questions or thin questions, and have that discussion with them so that they can see and find the distinction between the two. It's going to be important for you to prepare several thick and several thin questions so that students can see the difference. As you're preparing to teach this, make sure that you have both types of questions in your text that you're going to be sharing with your students. I'll also stick in the show notes some anchor text that I like to use when introducing the strategy. Of course, we want students to be able to ask questions no matter what the text that they're reading is but when you're first introducing this strategy, it is helpful to have those books that are obviously good for asking questions. I will link to some of those books in the show notes in case you need a starting off point.
All right, let's move on. When your students are ready to move into individual practice or small group practice with this strategy, I always feel it's important to give students some simple visuals to remind them. I've mentioned this in the other episodes on Reading Comprehension Strategies, and I will mention it again in this one that I love using things like mini posters or bookmarks that you can give your students that will help them to have some questioning prompts right in front of them as they're reading so that they remember to ask questions and they remember the kinds of questions that they could ask. If you want to get your hands on a free student bookmark that you can print out and use right away with your students, head over to the show notes at classroomnook.com/podcast/56 and I will have a way for you to get a free download right there. If you are not already a member of our Member Resource Library where I keep this bookmark, make sure you become a member and then you can grab it along with the other reading strategy bookmarks that are already in there as well. I also like to have a poster. On the Asking Questions poster, I might have sample questions that they can ask before reading, sample questions that they can ask during, and sample questions that they can ask after reading. Having these visuals available for students to refer to is helpful to keep this reading strategy top of mind when they are reading independently or in small groups.
Finally, you know that I love LINKtivity interactive learning guides, so you better believe I have one for asking questions and I will link to that resource in the show notes. Inside the activity, there is a kid friendly video that explains the reading strategy to the students. There's also a virtual reading buddy that they read alongside with to see this strategy in action. Then there's also three high interest reading passages that students can read to practice the strategy on their own. It's a digital interactive learning guide. If you haven't been exposed to LINKtivities before, definitely head over to the show notes, I will link to the resource and you can see exactly what I'm talking about. It's a great resource that students can use independently in centers. You can even use it as a whole class so definitely check that out. The resource comes with everything that you need to introduce the strategy. It comes with a five day sample lesson plan showing you how to roll out this strategy in your mini lessons. There's student observations sheets, rubrics, and student recording sheets, both printable and digital and all sorts of goodies. Definitely go check that out and I will link to it in the show notes. Of course, I will also link to the other episodes that I've released already covering the other reading strategies so if you haven't caught up on those particular episodes, definitely head back to the show notes. Lots of good information there if you are needing a little guidance for teaching reading strategies to your students.
All right, that is all I have for you today. Thanks so much for joining me. If you have a quick moment, take a second to leave a review on the podcast. I would be very appreciative of that. I will be back again next week with another episode. Same time, same place. Bye for now.
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