Lori and Gordon, This type of questioning analysis sounds like the QAR strategy. Q uestion A nswer R elationship examines types of questions that generate certain types of answers. There are lots of wonderful resources for teaching this on our own Mosaic Tools page.
http://www.readinglady.com/mosaic/tools/tools.htm I have used this for several years and find that by first asking questions and later deciding what type of thinking is needed to answer them, really deepens readers' comprehension. Another strategy that I love and have found to work well with challenging nonfiction (like our science texts), is a Linda Hoyt method called "Read, Cover, Remember, Retell." Students work with a partner. Both partners are reading the same thing, and the students cover as much text as their hand will cover. That is the amount they'll read. Each student reads (sometimes aloud, sometimes silently) and then one partner covers the text again with his or her hand. That partner has to retell what they understood that portion to be about. The partner is looking at the text to see if the first one is getting it. Lifting the hand for a peek if one gets stuck is encouraged, as it is a great way to have them rereading with purpose. Meanwhile the "checking" partner is also getting the benefit of the reread. After that section is done, the students go on to the next hand-sized section, reading, and the other partner then covers and tries to retell. I found it really helped their understanding because it slowed them down and had them thinking as they read, since students knew they'd have to retell it. I think this could work as an individual strategy by having students stop after certain portions to pause and reflect, checking to see if they got what had already been read. Anything you can do to bring students to the understanding that reading is thinking, and that they need to be reading actively, reacting and responding to any text. Maura 5/NJ ----- Original Message ----- From: "EDWARD JACKSON" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2009 7:20:15 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] comprehension My husband is doing an intensive study of questioning with his seventh graders--both in terms of how our questioning of the text drives us deeper towards understanding and simply of the questions themselves. We hope that children will benefit from thinking about question types (realizing, perhaps, when a question is literal or inferential). One the most telling and thought provoking activities came early on when he gave a mock test passage and series of questions. Kids worked in teams to rank the ten questions from most to least difficult. The conversations were very rich. Among other things, they began to realize that prior knowledge played a huge role in determining difficulty and that certain types of questions required not just skimming and scanning, but linking information from within the reading together. I don't know what impact it will have on scores, but it sure has kids thinking. Lori Jackson M.Ed.Reading Specialist Broken Bow, NE EMAILING FOR THE GREATER GOOD Join me > Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:07:05 -0700 > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Subject: [MOSAIC] comprehension > > After looking at the STAR test scores for our 4th graders, we realize they > were low in comprehension. What techniques or strategies do you all recommend > for raising the student's comprehension of daily reading and application to > testing? > Thanks, > Gordon > _______________________________________________ > Mosaic mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. > > Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. > _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
