Ask and Answer
Questions….
SANTA FE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
KINDERGARTEN
PRESENTED BY: SHERYL WHITE
NOVEMBER 2, 2012
Session Goals
 Examine expectations in the Common Core
Standards
 Acquire strategies for teaching students to
generate and answer questions.
 Provide opportunities for K teachers to
collaborate and learn from each other.
K-W-L
Know
Want to Know
Learned
Common Core K Expectations
 RL.K.1/RI.K.1 With prompting and support, ask and
answer questions about key details in a text.
 RL.K.4/RI.K.1 Ask and answer questions about
unknown words in a text.
 SL.K.2 Confirm understanding of a text read aloud or
information presented orally or through other media
by asking and answering questions about key details
and requesting clarification if something is not
understood.
 SL.K.3 Ask and answer questions in order to seek
help, get information, or clarify something that is not
understood.
Students Should Ask Questions…
 to build background knowledge
 to speculate beyond the text they have listened
to or read
 to clarify thinking
 to clear up confusion
Question Generation…
 Improves students’ thinking about and
understanding of the text.
 Promotes active listening, reading and processing.
 Helps students recall important ideas about new
content.
 Increases students’ awareness of whether or not
they are comprehending what they are reading or
hearing.
 Guides students to become independent selfquestioners.
Question Generation…
 Motivates students because they are answering
their own rather than those posed by the
teacher and/or text.
 Helps students set their own purposes for
reading and listening.
 Stimulates students’ curiosity.
 Helps students improve reading
comprehension regardless of reading level.
Why Teach Questioning
Readers…
 Should ask questions before, during and after
reading.
 Should determine if the answers to their questions
can be found in the text or whether they will need
to infer.
 Should understand that hearing others’ questions
will inspire new ones of their own.
 Should understand that asking questions is used
beyond school and in their everyday lives.
Questions for you…
 What vocabulary words should kindergarteners be
able to understand and use with confidence in
order to ask and answer questions about key
details in text?
 What are the important details and words in a
story or text being read that students need to
know?
 How does each illustration give clues about the
characters, setting, details or events in the
story/text?
Does Every Question Has an
Answer?
Polar Bear, Polar Bear
What do You Hear?
Teaching
Questioning
Strategies
The Gradual Release of
Responsibility
Independent Application
Independent Practice
Guided Practice
Teacher Modeling
Gradual Release of Responsibility Model
Teacher Directed
The teacher does all
the work through
modeling and
demonstrating.
Think Aloud is a
Joint Practice
Scaffolding
Student Practices
Under Teacher
Guidance
Independent Use
The teacher invites the
student to participate.
core strategy.
Students do the work
with help from the
teacher.
Students read and
write for different
purposes.
I DO
I DO
YOU DO
YOU DO
YOU WATCH
YOU HELP
I HELP
I WATCH
Teacher Modeling
“Thinking Aloud”
When we show
kids how we reap
big rewards.


“The think aloud gives the
students the opportunity to
see our thinking when we
read, the connections, we
make, the questions we
ask, our inferences and our
predictions.”
“It is through the read
aloud that teachers show
students their thinking
process when reading.”
Modeling a Think Aloud
 photos/illustrations
 picture books
 personal reading material (that students can
understand)
 classroom texts
 poetry
 musical lyrics
Teacher to Students…
“Last night I was reading this book
and while I was reading, I found
myself asking several questions
about the text.” Let me read this
passage to you …..
Elkhart Community Schools
Guided Practice
Guided practice provides students with
a scaffold to help them grow towards
independence.
Guided Practice
Using visual tools to support students”
• Charts
•
•
•
Anchor Charts
KWL
Two and Three Column charts
Guided Practice
Types of Anchor Charts
 “I wonder…”
 Question types
 Question stems
 Question examples
I Wonder…
 Oftentimes it is very difficult for students to
form questions.
 Sometimes students find it easier to pose
questions in the form of “I wonder…”
statements.
 After generating “I wonder ..” statements,
teachers can demonstrate how the statement can
be turned into a question with the question
word coming first.
Using a photo to teach
questioning
 I wonder where the truck is
going.
 I wonder what the truck is
carrying.
 I wonder why the truck is
painted that way.
 Tell a partner..
 “I wonder…”
In My Garden
 What do you wonder when you see this book?
 Can students find the answer to their “I wonder”
statements?
I Wonder….
?
Your Turn
 Using the picture you were given,
generate as many “I wonder…”
statements as you can.
Sources
of pictures
Calendars
Greeting
cards
Google Images
I wonder why the grass is green,
I Wonder
By Jeanne Kirby
And why the wind is never seen?
Who taught the birds to build a nest,
And told the trees to take a rest?
O, when the moon is not quite round,
Where can the missing bit be found?
Who lights the stars, when they blow out,
And makes the lightning flash about?
Who paints the rainbow in the sky,
And hangs the fluffy clouds so high?
Why is it now, do you suppose,
That Dad won’t tell me, if he knows?
“I Hear, I See….I Wonder”
 The teacher introduces this strategy by
demonstrating “I Hear, I See…I Wonder”.
While reading a text aloud the teacher “sees” a
word that they are unfamiliar with. The teacher
writes the word on an index card. Then the
teacher writes “I wonder” underneath the word
and asks a question about the word.
 Young students can do this activity with words
they hear when they are being read to.
Teaching Young Children to Ask
Questions
 Many children naturally ask questions, but
some children find asking questions to be a
difficult task. We want students to ask
questions of the books they are reading and
the books we are reading to them. We also
want them to internalize these questions and
be metacognitive when they are writing.
Teachers Pay Teachers, Andrea Knight 2012
Structures of Questions
 Most of us think of these words when we ask
questions:
 Who?
 What?
 When?
 Where?
 Why?
 How?
Explain these
Tier 2 words
to students.
Making Question Words Concrete
Who?
What?
Where?
When?
Use cut out pictures from magazines to have students sort into the proper box.
Rhyming Question Cues
Who?
Where?
“Who?”
asked the
kangaroo.
“Where?”
asked the
bear.
Rhyming Question Cues
When?
What?
“When?”
asked the
hen.
“What?”
asked the
mutt.
Rhyming Question Cues
How?
Why?
“Why?” asked
the fly.
“How?” asked
the cow.
Five Little Ducks
 Have students generate Wh and How
questions using their animal cue cards?
Who?
When?
What?
Where?
Why?
How?
Questions I Have...
?
Question Card Exchange
Students Must Ask Questions…
 Tell students that good readers (and listeners)
ask questions
Before Reading
During Reading
After Reading
Asking Questions
BEFORE
DURING
AFTER
Before
BEFORE Questions
 What
is the worm writing?
 What
is a diary?
 What
do people use a diary for?
During
DURING Questions
 Why
did Worm stand there all day when the ants
went by?
 What
 Why
was Worm’s nightmare about?
is hopscotch a dangerous game for Worm?
After
AFTER Questions
What
are some good things
about being a worm?
How
are worms helpful to the
earth?
Informational Text
 Before-During-After
• I will read the story
aloud.
• Divide your paper
into thirds.
• Label one column
with Before, one
with During, one
with After.
• As a table group,
you will follow the
steps to generating
Before, During, and
After questions.
Teacher Buzz
How does generating questions
before, during and after reading
help students understand the
story?
A Key Focus of Common Core
Standards
STUDENTS WILL BE ASKED REFER
TO THE TEXT AND CITE EVIDENCE
FROM THE TEXT.
HOW DO WE TEACH OUR
YOUNGEST STUDENTS TO DO THIS?
THICK and Thin Questions
Thin Questions
THICK QUESTIONS
• Answers are • Answers are
“right there” not in the text.
in the text.
You have to
think about
them.
Question Answer Relationship
Question Answer Relationship
 What was Worm’s nightmare about?
 Why did Worm say good morning to all
600 ants ?
 How would ………………….?
Jack and the Beanstalk
Step 1:
Generate Questions
 Before
 During
 After
Step 2:
QAR-Identify where
you can find answers
to the questions.
Right There?
Me and the Book…
On Your Own?
5 Senses Questions and Answers
5 Senses Questions
Awesome Autumn
Look like?
Feel like?
Sound like?
Smell like?
Taste Like?
Brown Bag Questions
 Place objects in a bag.
 Have students generate questions to try and
guess its contents.
 Who?
 What?
 When?
 Where?
Today’s Brown Bag topic: Autumn
K-W-L
Know
Want to Know
Learned