Tip #108 from 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents (McKinley & Tromnly) - Question Types

 

Today's tip for parents from two talented teachers comes from 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents by Cindy McKinley Alder and Patti Trombly.

                                                                       #108

QAR: Question-Answer Relationship (Types of Questions)

 

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.
You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions
 ~Naguib, Mahfouz

 

            Earlier in this chapter, you read that reading the questions your child will have to answer before she even reads the text is a terrific strategy. It sets a purpose for reading and helps her pay attention throughout. Reading for the answers is a much better strategy than going back and digging through the text for every answer.

            Still, all questions are not created equal. The next time your child brings home an assignment with many (or any) wrong answers, take a look at the kinds of questions they were. How the questions were created is quite obvious: are they true/ false? Multiple choice? Fill in the blank? Short answer? Certainly, some children have an easier time with some of those more than others. But inside those questions there is something else to think about: what level are they?
            Some questions are at a basic recall level, often referred to as “Right There” kinds of questions. These are literal questions. Often, the words used in the question are the same words found in the text. Your child usually does not even have to reread to find these kinds of answers. The answers are fairly obvious to a reader who has actually comprehended.

            Then there are slightly deeper-level questions, sometimes referred to as “Think and Search” questions. These are sometimes obvious to kids, but more often the text needs to be skimmed back over to find the answers (if they weren’t found as she read!). Sometimes, answers are gathered from several parts of the text. Still, whether they are easy to find or not, the answers are in the text.

            Some questions require both knowledge of the text and knowledge from the reader. These types of questions are usually called “Author and You.” For these questions, the answer will not be directly in the text, but she needs information the author has given and will combine it with what she already knows in order to respond to this type of question. For example, let’s say she was reading about a certain bill that was trying to be passed in the government. An “author and you” question might be Do you think the law should be passed? Explain why or why not. In order to answer this, she will need information about the law from the text and she will need to use her own knowledge of how that law might affect her and her community to respond to that question.

            Often, the tougher questions to answer are at the next level, sometimes called “On my Own” questions. For these, the answers themselves are not actually in the text, either. Sometimes, these questions do not require the student to have read the text at all, but she must use her background knowledge to answer the question.

            When you are looking over a test or an assignment, look beyond the number of questions she misses and see if you can find a pattern in the kinds of questions she misses. If they are usually the deeper-level,” on-your-own” kinds, go over the question with her and help her find a place in the text that she could have used to help her formulate an answer. This will help her the next time she encounters a question like that, as she certainly will! Of course, going over any incorrect answers also gives the added bonus of learning anything she may have missed!        

   

     Cindy McKinley Alder                                            Patti Trombly

 

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