Part of the preparation for guided reading involves devising questions to ask at key places in the text. To prevent teacher questioning from becoming interrogative and inhibiting discussion, the emphasis is on focused questioning that requires reading between and beyond the lines.
LITERAL QUESTIONS
The answers to these questions can be found in the text. It is simply a matter of locating them e.g.
What did Mum say was NOT to be bought with the money?
What colour was the pet?
INFERENTIAL QUESTIONS
Answers to inferential questions are found between the lines, and can only be decided by searching for clues and inferring their meaning e.g.
What sort of pet was it? How do you know?
Do you think it was wise of Mum to say that the money could be spent on anything except sweets?
EVALUATIVE QUESTIONS
Answers to evaluative questions lie beyond the text and require readers to draw on their personal knowledge and experience e.g.
Would you like to have a pet like that?
Why was the pet so special?
What do you think would happen if you took a pet home without asking first?
Skilled questions maximise the potential of the reading material and generate high-level thinking and discussion. They also provide an excellent model for pupils who need to adopt self-questioning strategies and learn how to read ‘into’ a text to answer different types of questions. Generally, inferential and evaluative questions are open-ended and therefore the pupils may give a range of answers.
Pupils also need to justify their opinions by referring both to the text and to their own life experience.
Question prompts to cue inferential and evaluative answers
I wonder why ……………..
I liked this part because ……….
I don’t like this part because ……….
If I had written this book I would have …………..
This bit reminds me of ………………………..
LITERAL QUESTIONS
The answers to these questions can be found in the text. It is simply a matter of locating them e.g.
What did Mum say was NOT to be bought with the money?
What colour was the pet?
INFERENTIAL QUESTIONS
Answers to inferential questions are found between the lines, and can only be decided by searching for clues and inferring their meaning e.g.
What sort of pet was it? How do you know?
Do you think it was wise of Mum to say that the money could be spent on anything except sweets?
EVALUATIVE QUESTIONS
Answers to evaluative questions lie beyond the text and require readers to draw on their personal knowledge and experience e.g.
Would you like to have a pet like that?
Why was the pet so special?
What do you think would happen if you took a pet home without asking first?
Skilled questions maximise the potential of the reading material and generate high-level thinking and discussion. They also provide an excellent model for pupils who need to adopt self-questioning strategies and learn how to read ‘into’ a text to answer different types of questions. Generally, inferential and evaluative questions are open-ended and therefore the pupils may give a range of answers.
Pupils also need to justify their opinions by referring both to the text and to their own life experience.
Question prompts to cue inferential and evaluative answers
I wonder why ……………..
I liked this part because ……….
I don’t like this part because ……….
If I had written this book I would have …………..
This bit reminds me of ………………………..
