How Queries Differ From Traditional Questions
The major points of comparison between Queries and traditional questions are summarized in Figure 2.1.
Queries are designed to assist students in dealing with, and grasping, text ideas as they encounter
them. In comparison, traditional questions follow a fairly typical pattern of instruction, in which students
read a passage, the teacher initiates a series of questions, students respond, and the teacher evaluates
their responses to text. This pattern, which has been documented as being a very prevalent teaching
practice, is referred to as the IRE pattern of instruction: I, initiate; R, respond; and E, evaluate (Dillon,
1988; Mehan, 1979). At its best, the IRE pattern assesses comprehension; it does not assist with the
process of comprehending. Moreover, the IRE pattern is after the fact and tends to rely on questions that
ask students to recall what they have read rather than help students to build an understanding of a test.
Figure 2.1
Comparison of Some Traditional
Questions and Queries
QUESTIONS
1. Assess student comprehension
of text information after the fact
2. Focus on teacher-to-student interactions,
which generate individual students’
responses that the teacher can evaluate
3. Used before or after reading
QUERIES
1. Assist students with developing the
meaning of text ideas in the course of
reading
2. Facilitate group discussion about
an author’s ideas and encourage
student-to-student and student-toteacher interactions
3. Used during initial reading
You might say that IRE is kind of an exit strategy, whereas Queries help students gain entrance to a
text. Queries focus students’ attention on the text and hone their ability to assess the quality and depth of
a text’s ideas as they construct meaning. This focus is far different from that of traditional questions
designed to assess only the accuracy of student responses.
The second important distinction between questions and Queries is that the teacher often asks
traditional questions in order to evaluate individual students’ understandings. In contrast, Queries aim to
facilitate group discussion about an author’s ideas. To be sure, questions are useful for giving teachers a
quick idea of which students are getting it and which aren’t. Generally, however, a question is directed to
the entire class but only one student provides the answer. This individual student assumes all the
responsibility while releasing the other students from any share in it. The action takes place between the
teacher and one student, and the classroom dynamic can take on the character of a quiz show. Students
compete for the chance to announce the right answer, and the teacher lets contestant-students know
when their answers are good enough to wind the prize of approval.
Queries, on the other hand, are designed to change the role of the teacher from quiz-show host to
discussion facilitator. A teacher who uses Queries focuses less on evaluating student responses and
more on encouraging students and more on encouraging students to consider an author’s ideas and to
respond to one another’s interpretations of those ideas. As a result, student-to-student and student-toteacher interactions tend to increase, transforming the context for learning from a competitive one to a
classroom of spirited learners grappling with an author’s text and working together to understand it.
The last distinction we want to emphasize is that questions are typically used before or after reading,
whereas Queries are used in the course of an initial reading. They’re not before the fact or after the
fact—they’re right on time! After all, comprehension doesn’t falter after reading but during reading, and
so Queries are designed to aid comprehension at a student’s true point of need.
Let’s consider further the effects of timing. When teachers ask questions after reading, students may
get some messages that teachers may not intend. Students may assume that questioning is a different
and perhaps unrelated exercise from reading. Right and wrong tends to move to the center of attention
for both teacher as evaluator and student as the one being evaluated. Is this the message we want to
convey to students? Isn’t it a more accurate message that readers are always questioning as they read?
Questioning and reading are symbiotically related to each other; one enhances the other in mutually
beneficial ways.
From Improving Comprehension with Questioning the Author,
Isabel L. Beck and Margaret G. McKeown
26.