Questioning and its importance in reading

Questioning students is very important in evaluating what they have learned from any given reading assignment. The article "crafting questions that addresses comprehension strategies in content areas" states “at the heart of comprehension is how students think their way through a text while reading , and the quality of that thinking depends, in part, on the type of questions teachers ask” (Alvermann et al., 2004;Hoyt, 2002; Miller, 2002; Vacca & Vacca, 2005).

There are so many different strategies that teachers can use when questioning their students and at any time. Thinking about ones’ own thinking is an important strategy in comprehension. This type of thinking strategy is known as meta cognition and it is important because according to O’Mally, Chamot, Stewner-Mazanaares, Russo, and Kupper (1985) students without meta cognitive approaches are essentially learners without direction or opportunity to review their progress, accomplishment and future directions. The author -Nancy W. Fordham went on to show us in a practical way how she helped her students with instructional strategies that will enable her students to better extract meaning from written texts. Prior knowledge, preview of materials making connections and questioning the text are all tools for thinking. Once these tools are used by the students they will become proficient in comprehension. In teaching strategic reading her students saw her in action, while teaching she was able to think her own thinking while reading the text aloud. This strategy is so important in giving students the practical aspect they are able to remember was taught and put it into practice, after a while they will become competent in that area.

An embedded question is another area that was of interest to me. In researching, I found that embedded questions are questions that are included in another question. Weir (1998)recommend this extra support for less able readers who need practice in thinking their way through a reading task. It enables them to think about what it is they should be doing during reading and to self assess themselves whether they are doing it, meaning is made not found. The writers’ goal in introducing this activity of embedded questions “was to encourage content teachers to bridge what they know about meta cognition and good questioning techniques and think about what they as teachers need to be doing when asking questions and self assess whether they are or not. Once the ability is mastered the teachers are able to guide their students through a reading assignment using appropriate questions that would help them to think their own thinking”.