Strategic+Guiding+Questions


 * Strategic Guiding Questions **

There are three simple questions that students can be taught to guide them in story-type reading: 1. What is the main idea? 2. What are the important details? 3. How do the characters feel, and why?

The first two questions can be used with expository texts. Initially this strategy can be structured by having students silent read for a few minutes and then the teacher asks them the questions aloud. If the content is appropriate, the following questions may be added:

4. Where is the author going next with this? 5. How might you organize the information so far?

As this is s during reading strategy, the following is a sample of how it might look in a classroom.

The teacher would select a newspaper article, section from text, on-line article, or other section of reading. The students are given 1 – 2 minutes to read silently (more or less depending on where you feel is an appropriate stopping place).

“Turn your papers over for a few minutes. A good first strategic question to ask about anything we read is, ‘so far, what seems to be the main idea here?’ Can someone say, in your own words, the main idea of what you have just read?” Students would then respond with ideas that the teacher would record on the board/overhead. Students should not look back at the article as they are encouraged to recall. As students give ideas, the teacher can ask, “Is that part of the main idea, or is it a supporting detail?” Supporting details can be written on the side of the main idea statement. Teacher could give students a few more seconds after the main idea is formulated to see if they can acquire any more important details to add to the list. Then the teacher might say, “Now, before you turn your papers back over, where do you think that author is going next with this?” This allows students to make predictions about the material they will read. With the responses to the main idea and prediction in place, the teacher may ask whether the five-W’s (who, what, where, when, and why) have all been answered. You may emphasize that a certain part of one of them has been addressed in the first few paragraphs, (remember this in the introductory section?) but that it doesn’t fully explain another aspect.

After several lessons of structuring the guided questions this way, the teacher should fade out his/her supportive scaffolding. For example, 1. Have students make small pencil checks at given points in the reading before they begin. Then when they are silently reading and come to these points, write a clarifying question of any type and record their answers. 2. Direct students to select three points on their own, while reading, and to stop and write clarifying questions and answers.