Questioning

Questioning is an essential aspect to learning. We are told almost every day to use metacognition with our students to ensure their complete understanding to a subject. These questions can be class discussions or silent questioning to themselves. A lot of teachers ask students if they have any questions orally as a class discussion. This can be both good and bad. The good part about asking and answering questions in whole-group discussion is that many students may have the same question, and this way, the teacher can answer them for everyone rather than having them wonder or ask individually. A reason why answering and asking questions orally may not be as effective is that students may be too shy to ask a question, so rather than asking they may just decide to figure it out on their own.

Questioning is also very effective when students ask themselves silently, especially while reading. When students are able to question text while reading, it gives them a purpose for finishing and comprehending that text in order to find out the answer. Questioning texts can also lead to researching other texts to find an answer. This gives students multiple opportunities to learn and seek out more information regarding a subject. Questioning does not come natural to all students, however, and teachers must be prepared to teach their students exactly how to question internally while reading.

Last year, I had the opportunity to teach about a comprehension strategy that this chapter talks about a great deal. ReQuest is a comprehension strategy in which higher-level thinking questions are exchanged between both students and teachers. This is an excellent way to get students more involved in questioning, feel more comfortable with questioning out loud, and allowing the teacher to model to the students exactly what type of questions they should be asking themselves while reading. I will definitely be using this and other strategies to encourage my students to question while reading. I do have a few questions though: Questioning is a hard concept to grasp at first, is there a grade where questioning instruction should begin? and what are some non-verbal ways that more shy students can practice questioning and still be assessed?