Improving Reading Comprehension
Using Questions to Build Comprehension
Improving reading comprehension is vital for students. In Kindergarten through third grade, students learn to read. Starting in fourth grade, students read to learn, and this requires comprehension of the text they are reading. Asking the following questions will help students improve their reading comprehension.
Ask ‘Wh’ Questions to Improve Comprehension
Who, what, where, when and why are the five ‘wh’ questions that can be tailored to any text to help improve upon and assess comprehension. The first four ‘wh’ questions are explicit questions where the answer is found directly in the text. Have students look up the text that supports their answer for these questions.
Examples of the first four ‘wh’ questions: Ask students who did this, or who said that. Who was the main character? Who were the supporting characters? Ask what was going on, what happened there, what did he say and what did she do? Ask where they were going, where that happened, and where was that found? Ask when she got there, when she was going to leave, and so on.
The last ‘wh’ question is an implicit question. When asking why, the answer is not spelled out in the text. Students must infer the answer based on what was going on in the story. For example, why did she say that? Or, why did she do that? Once again, have students support their answer with the text, as best they can.
Ask ‘How’ Questions to Improve Comprehension
Asking how questions requires students to not only understand what is going on, but to connect to the text personally as well. Ask questions like how did she feel when that happened? Follow up a how question with why – why do you think she felt that way?
Predict What Will Happen Next
Ask students while they are reading to guess or predict what will happen next when you turn the page. Many books are laid out to leave a reader wanting to turn the page to find out what happens next, and this lends itself perfectly to pausing and asking the question causing students to think about what is going on and make a reasonable guess about what will happen next.
Make sure that when teaching or assessing comprehension, you ask a variety of questions. Include explicit and implicit questions, mixing prediction and 'how' questions in as well. It is important, though, to not stop at asking questions. Ask the students to back their answers up with the text. Improving reading comprehension takes a lot of work, but these questions should help you along the way.
