Questioning and reading

Lucy has written this excellent account of how she has been developing questioning within reading:

In order to ensure that students’ reading is purposeful, we have found that questioning is really important.

We have been trying to train students so that they can answer the questions that we ask, but more importantly that they begin to ask themselves these questions as they are reading.

I have this grid as a prompt for students to ask each other questions.  I also use this as a prompt for myself and with lower ability students I ask them to decide a question that they feel comfortable answering before I speak to them.  Sometimes I will tell students that I am just asking a specific type of questions.

I have also started to play ‘I Spy’ as a homework task with private reading.  This is based on the books from when I was little (if anybody remembers them!).

I SPY

Students are given a key focus during their reading that is based on their own target, for example:

– simple sentence for a specific effect

– complex sentence – subordinate clause at the start

– complex sentence – subordinate clause at the end

– complex sentence – imbedded clause in the middle

– compound sentence

– effective sentence start – first word or first few words

Sometimes I will have a whole class focus or will et students choose one of these.  They then try to complete the ‘I Spy’ task, with questions getting increasingly complex:

1. Identify an example of this type of sentence.
2. How else could the writer have written this sentence?
3. Explain what effect it has on the reader.

As feedback, students then have a range of options to choose from for how to present their understanding to the group:

• Read out the sentence and ask group to draw what it shows.
• Read the sentence and ask them to identify the connective.  Ask them to find another connective.
• Read out the sentence and ask group to add punctuation – could it be read in different ways?
• Write down the main clause from a complex sentence and ask your group to suggest a subordinate clause.
• Give the group the subordinate clause and ask them to suggest a main clause.
• Write the sentence down and ask the group to label how they feel at different stages.

Alternatively I will ask for verbal or written feedback.