Asking Effective Questions – A Reading Strategy

Asking questions is one of the most wonderful strategies to get your students delving deeper into a text.  I’ve stumbled upon a wonderful way to get your students to ask questions that will greatly enhance their understanding, allow them to make deeper connections and potentially create a lifelong love of curios exploration.

After you’ve had some lessons aboout questions as a reading strategy, it’s important to talk to your students about the levels of questioning that can occur.  Here is a wonderful example:

Teach students how to ask effective questions as a reading strategy with these fantastic ideas!
(Taken from Patheos)

Oh, wouldn’t it be amazing to have your students asking inventive questions! The joy that will appear on your face when your students asks “if you had a Giving Tree, what would you do differently?” is priceless my friends.  I promise you, you can get your students to this deep level of questioning.  The first step is to use the wonderful anchor chart above as a start.  Here are some other ways to get your students asking critical thinking questions:

Start A Wonder Wall

Teach students how to ask effective questions as a reading strategy with these fantastic ideas!
(Taken from Welcome To First Grade)

A wonder wall is a great way to get your students to practice asking questions.  They can ask questions about any curriculum topic, not just reading.  What’s even greater is that students can take a stab at answering the questions, or sharing theories with each other.  This is an informal way to get your students thinking about asking questions as a step towards learning.

Give examples of “thin” & “thick” questions

Teach students how to ask effective questions as a reading strategy with these fantastic ideas!
(Taken from Life in Fifth Grade)

This is a great way to get your students gaging whether their questions warrant a deeper level of thinking. Give examples of the type of responses critical thinking questions garner, and how they usually sound as well.  The anchor chart above is fantastic for this purpose.  Also, allow your students to practice asking these questions with your consistent feedback on how they are doing.

Lots of Practice

Let your students have lots of practice not only asking deeper questions, but using texts to answer them as well.  Here are some classic ways to practice:

Teach students how to ask effective questions as a reading strategy with these fantastic ideas!
Create examples of your own, for students to learn from. (Taken from Reading Workshop)
Teach students how to ask effective questions as a reading strategy with these fantastic ideas!
Model questions for specific stories, and then have your students create their own questions. (Taken from Reading Workshop)
Teach students how to ask effective questions as a reading strategy with these fantastic ideas!
Give students plenty of opportunities to practice. (Taken from Classroom Freebies)

How do you get your students asking meaningful questions?