By Laura Robb

The practice of asking questions to drive students’ learning is alive and well in schools today. But here’s the rub! Too often questioning is recitation where the teacher prompts students for the “one right answer” to questions she has developed.  Moreover, at school, who should be posing the questions? To foster independent readers and thinkers, students need to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to asking and answering questions.  If teachers always control questioning, then student learning is greatly diminished because students aren’t discussing ideas that have relevance to them.  

On the other hand, when quality, student-generated questions define a class, meaningful learning takes place—learning that defines reading, research, collaborative projects, literary discussions, and units of study. As students wonder and question and use their questions to learn, they develop the ability to raise questions while reading. This keeps them focused on a text, but also motivates them to read on to find answers to their queries. 

When Do Students Ask Questions?  

Opportunities abound throughout the day for students to pose questions. Here are a few:

Mini-lessons:  Invite students to jot down questions they have while you present a mini-lesson and ask these when you’ve finished. Such questions clarify students’ understanding and help them absorb new ideas. However, students’ questions can offer you insights into what they do and don’t understand. With this information, you can design interventions based on observed needs.

A daily teacher read aloud:  Frequently, students pose questions about a conflict, theme, or how events connect. Reserving a few minutes for students to ask their questions shows them how much you value their thinking and provides you with insights into ways students react to the text.

Setting goals: Help students understand that raising two questions such as, Is there a strategy I should work on next? What do I have to do to reach this goal?” can improve their learning. Such questions develop independence because they place students in charge of decision-making.

Self-evaluation: Questions can also drive students’ evaluation of their work over time, such as reviewing several journal entries in their notebooks, the entire process for a piece of writing, several quizzes and test grades, or their participation in collaborative projects. Here’s a sampling of questions that students might ask: Did I improve? How do I know I made progress? Is there something I did that stands out? Did I struggle? How? What did I do to cope with my struggles?

A result of self-evaluative questions is the development of metacognition, the ability of students to reflect on their written work, collaborations, and learning to improve critical thinking and problem-solving.

Close reading: Isabel Beck and Margaret G. McKeown’s strategy, questioning the author, provides students with questions for fiction and nonfiction texts. The questions help students link words, phrases, and ideas to construct meaning from a passage they find challenging. While close reading, the student might ask: Why did the author use that word or phrase? How does the word or phrase connect to the information in the sentence? To information that came before the sentence? How does the paragraph or section connect to the title? The theme or main idea? The previous paragraph or section?  These questions can develop independence in unpacking meaning from challenging passages in texts.

Inquiry-based learning: Before and during a unit of study, students generate questions that drive their reading, investigations, experiments, and discussions. Researchers like Jeffrey Wilhelm and Michael Smith, show that when student-generated questions steer the direction studies take, they are more engaged and motivated to learn. Inquiry fosters collaborating, recalling and understanding information, analyzing texts, and meeting deadlines. Students enjoy the process far more than when teachers direct and control students’ learning.

Reading texts: Teach students how to pose open-ended, interpretive questions and invite them to work as a team when reading an assigned or self-selected text. Open-ended questions have two or more answers. Verbs such as, why, how, evaluate, explain, compare/contrast can signal interpretive questions. Returning to a text to write open-ended questions deepens students’ knowledge of plot and information, but it also raises the level of discussions to analytical and critical thinking. In addition, discussing their own questions motivates and engages students in the reading and in exchanging ideas.

The Teacher’s Role

Providing a model for students, one that shows them how to raise questions during diverse learning experiences is a primary job of teachers. Becoming a skilled questioner won’t happen quickly for most students. However, turning the questioning process over to students gives them opportunities to practice and to make their studies more meaningful. Equally important, when students are in charge of questioning, they develop independence in learning.

Meaningful reflection by teachers and students –reflection that considers improving questioning techniques and gathering feedback can create a learning environment that values students’ questions as a path to progress in all subjects.

Laura Robb’s most recent book is Read, Talk, Write 35 Lessons That Teach Students to Analyze Fiction and Nonfiction.

During my first year of teaching, the principal of the K-6 school gave me this advice: “Get down to work immediately; give your sixth graders homework the first night; make students work hard from the minute they enter the classroom. Don’t waste time.” I quickly discovered that this advice, given with the goal of covering curriculum in mind, was definitely faulty.

That first year, I felt awkward and uncomfortable diving into the curriculum without knowing the students in my class.  It wasn’t research that raised these feelings, for if there was any in 1963, I certainly hadn’t read it.  After two days of trying to learn with students I knew nothing about and who knew nothing about me, I put myself into reverse and relived the opening days of school. For four consecutive days,  I set aside thirty minutes a day to get to know my sixth graders and help them get to know me.

That first year of teaching I felt as if I was in the middle of the ocean with a life preserver, treading water to keep afloat. I was an English and French literature major—never took an education class.  But here I was, in rural Virginia, facing students who were as curious about me as I was about them. So, in order to help them get to know me, I let them pepper me with myriad questions. Is New York really that big? Why did you come to Virginia? Have you taught school? Do you have children? Have you ridden a subway? Why do you read aloud in the morning? What was your sixth grade like? What do you do in your spare time?

Caring and Trusting Relationships

My responses were honest. Soon, instead of question-response, we were having conversations because many students started sharing information about their lives.  As I learned about each one, the children became unique individuals with diverse feelings, needs, experiences, hopes, and dreams. At this point you might be wondering, why is it important to get to know every student you teach? As teachers form positive relationships with each student, trust develops between both and results in the building and strengthening of a community of learners.

Classroom communities that have strong, positive relationships between the teacher and students develop an environment that advances students’ social, emotional, and academic growth. In addition, strong, positive relationships between teacher and students promote positive behavior and feelings of self-worth and self-efficacy—an “I can” mindset—among students. In addition, when students develop self-confidence, they are more apt to take risks in their academic work and believe they can reach important goals.  It’s never too late to build community and forge relationships with students. What follows are suggestions that can help you deepen your knowledge of students and at the same time nurture positive and trusting relationships.

Sticky Note Sharing

Give students two sticky notes; have them write their names at the top and record their likes on one and dislikes on the other. Ask students to post sticky notes on a wall or whiteboard keeping “likes” and “dislikes” together. Share and discuss the content of the notes without saying the students’ names. Return these to students and have them tape the notes on a clean, dated page of their readers’ notebooks. Complete the same exercise near the end of the year. Ask students to compare the sticky notes from the start of the year to those completed near the end of the year and write a short paragraph that notes and explains changes. You can use the prompts that follow or some of your own.

Why you like/dislike school?

What’s easy about reading? What’s hard about reading?

What’s easy about writing? What’s hard about writing?

Why do you like/dislike writing?

Getting to Know You Conferences

Set aside time for several five-minute getting-to-know-you conferences while students complete silent reading and/or work on writing. Try to meet with every student by the end of two to three weeks. The purpose of this conference is to discover students’ interests, hobbies, reading habits, favorite authors, and genre.

Open the conference by sharing your interests, favorite authors, etc. so students get to know you. Jot notes about what students say so you have reminders to refer to that can help you suggest independent reading books to students as the year unfolds.

Closing Thoughts

Always zoom in on students’ strengths–what they can do because progress comes from building on students’ strengths. In your heart and with your words and actions, project a growth mindset to students–an “I can do it” and “I can improve” outlook.  Support them and continually point out small increments of progress. Knowing they’re moving forward and succeeding helps students continue to work hard, raise questions, and understand when they need extra support.

Keep the information you collect about each student in a file folder. You can also store assessments, journal work, writing about reading, tests, and quizzes in the folder. Periodically, review the contents of the folder to evaluate progress and decide whether to confer with a student and negotiate a goal. The more you keep track of and invest in each student’s learning, the more you communicate “I care” and continue to build positive relationships. By investing in great relationships with students throughout the year, the trusting bonds between you and them strengthen as does students’ motivation to work hard and learn.

Check out the Reading Intervention Toolkit! It’s a great resource for teachers!

“Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.” This Japanese proverb supports what Richard Allington’s research explains: It’s teachers who make a difference in children’s learning. Yet, schools invest mega-dollars in programs—basal reading programs. computer reading programs with scripted guides that tell teachers what to say and how students should reply. The notion of a quick fix to transform students into proficient and advanced readers maintains its allure to many school districts around the country.

We need to let go of the search for the magic bullet that quickly turns every student into a successful and motivated learner. The solution resides in every school: teachers. Invest in teachers and make ongoing professional study at the building level the core strategy for supporting all students. This is not the quick fix school districts yearn for; this is an investment that works.

 Investing in teachers also means giving them the materials needed to reach students at diverse instructional reading levels: class libraries with 1,000 to 2,000 books for independent reading and book rooms that have five to six copies of the finest literature relating to the topics in units of studies across the curriculum—all at instructional reading levels that represent the school’s student population. Take careful note: having the best books available for students won’t matter unless teachers receive the training that enables them to use resources to meet students’ needs.

Pre-service Training

        While attending college, it’s crucial to learn the way you will be teaching your students. Instead of lecturing, teachers collaborate, experience project based learning, genius hour, guided reading, differentiating instruction, and explore how to use technology to enhance learning. In addition, college education curriculum should prepare teachers to manage a classroom of diverse learners as well as how to actively involve students in their learning. For you to work in a rapidly changing world, professional study needs to continue in schools where you teach.

Ongoing Professional Learning

        One-shot workshops don’t have lasting power, even when they are from outstanding educators. They can inspire teachers and administrators to reflect on change, but without follow-up, they tend to fizzle and soon are forgotten.  So, to make the most of an inspirational, active learning workshop, it’s important for administrators and literacy coaches to keep the conversation going and provide the support needed to change and adjust instruction. It also means that administrators need to attend workshops that you attend. The suggestions that follow maintain a focus on PD.        

Faculty and Team Meetings: You and colleagues learn using professional materials in ways their students will learn. You collaborate, have meaningful conversations, raise questions, share ways you could integrate technology, write about your reading and ask: How can I use the information in this article to support my students?

Google Docs: Administrators, reading specialists, and teachers can take turns posting a professional article once each month on Google Docs. This is an excellent way to enlarge your theory of how children learn, best practices, and twenty-first century skills: collaboration, communication, creativity, critical thinking, and technology. You and other staff members respond on Google Docs with a comment, question, or connection to classroom practices. Observing Colleagues: By observing a colleague, you can learn about class management, motivation, engagement, and how experiences foster creativity and collaboration. Finding the time to do this is always an issue. I suggest that school administrators step up and cover a class to make this happen. It’s important to follow up an observation of a colleague teaching with a conversation to offer feedback, pose questions, and clarify understandings.

Teachers as Readers Groups: When the principal suggests organizing groups that read and discuss a professional book the group chooses, and the school purchases the books for the group, it tells teachers, “The principal and this school community value professional learning.”  Best, if principals invite you to volunteer to participate, as you will have to commit extra time. If the principal organizes groups twice a year, teachers will eventually join one–and the principal should also join one.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Take Advantage of Twitter: Encourage the entire school staff to open a twitter account and become active on this social network platform. Twitter offers interactions with educators and writers around the country and world. Learning occurs when you explore articles suggested in tweets, comment on these, and reflect on thought-provoking quotes that occur daily. Ask a question about teaching on twitter, and you’ll receive several thoughtful replies.

Partnerships: Encourage teachers to form a partnership with a colleague they trust.  Teacher partnerships hold myriad possibilities: discuss the kind of feedback to offer a student, learn more about project-based learning and genius hour, share ideas and uses of technology, professional articles, read aloud texts. There are no limits on what partners can share, learn together, and discuss.

Closing Thoughts

Nothing can replace you, the teacher, in the classroom.  That’s why ongoing professional development at the building level is so important. Unlike computers and robots, when you possess deep knowledge about how children learn, you can process students’ actions, words, and written work and provide feedback that moves each child forward. Moreover, you have a heart and emotional center that enables you to build students’ self-efficacy, self-confidence, motivation, and engagement in learning because students feel your respect and trust, your hopes and goals, as they experience your investment in their progress.  

Learn more from a great book by Laura, Read-Talk-Write

I started my first year of teaching in a country school near Winchester, Virginia with two sets of books for sixth grade: the Ginn Basal Reader with its accompanying workbooks and a sixth-grade math textbook. Of the twenty-eight students in my classroom, five students could read the stories and complete the workbook pages. Twenty-three students were reading two to four years below grade level. To prevent a backward slide due to lack of reading, I checked out books for them to read from the public library. I also wrote to publishers asking for uncorrected proofs or any books they could send me. Books arrived daily which started my first classroom library.

I learned five lessons from my first year of teaching that have stayed with me throughout my career. These lessons continue to be reinforced as I work in schools and present workshops for teachers.

Lesson 1:  Teach your students, not programs.

People who design and create basal programs and scripted teaching guides don’t know your students. Good teaching requires knowing each one of your students as learners and as people who have a life beyond school. Knowing enables you to identify students’ strengths and needs, then, with their input, figure out the best way to help each one of them improve and grow.

BEWARE of programs that promise success for all students if you faithfully use their materials. And here’s why. Basal Reading Programs are grade level, and classes throughout the country have some students reading at grade level, some above, and too often many reading two or more years below their grade. In addition, these programs have students reading excerpts from books—short texts. There is not enough reading material in one program to help students raise their instructional reading levels. Teachers tell me that there are so many worksheets for students to complete, there’s no time for extra instructional reading–definitely, no time for independent reading. Moreover, basal reading programs create teacher dependency. The program and its guides do the thinking for teachers and replace teacher observations, interactions with students, and having the background knowledge to make the decisions that can move each student forward.

The lure for teachers and administrators of reading programs on a computer is that texts are at diverse instructional levels, making these programs appealing to schools with large populations of below-grade-level readers. Texts on computer programs are usually short with an abundance of factual questions focusing students on information in the text. No deep inferential thinking or multiple interpretations here. Like Basal reading programs, Computer reading programs don’t offer students enough reading for them to improve. Students need to read books to build stamina, practice comprehending complex plots, new information, and then infer, synthesize, and evaluate parts of the text.  Programs make lots of money for corporations. They. Don’t. Help. Children.

Lesson 2:  Learn from your students.

Effective teachers learn from their students. They circulate among students, watch them read and write, listen to their conversations, noting who gets the lesson and who requires additional support. Effective teachers confer with individuals and small groups, trying to get inside students’ heads to understand how they think about reading and writing. Effective teachers provide helpful feedback to students—feedback that causes students to be meta-cognitive, self-evaluate their progress and set goals.  You see, it’s what students do—their talk, writing, and questions that inform what we teach and whether we need to plan interventions. Learning from students means teachers continually learn about the art of teaching.

Lesson 3:  Invest in teachers.

Teachers make a difference in students’ learning and their lives. No adult recalls a workbook page, but they do recall a teacher who spent time getting to know them, who learned their interests and suggested books to read that tapped into those interest, who helped them improve, and made learning active and engaging. If we as a nation value education and understand the importance of helping students learn for their future, then schools need to invest in teachers, not programs. Ongoing PD at the building level is an investment that will support all students as teachers continually develop their theory of learning.

Lesson 4:  Teach reading with the finest books.

Use the finest literature. No more ordering class sets of one book. Class sets mirror a basal program because every student can’t read and learn from the same book. Content teachers order books for a specific topic, such weather and ELA teachers around a genre and theme such as biography and obstacles the person faced.  Purchase four to five copies of each title. Lobby for a book room and organize books around a topic, genre, and instructional reading levels. Books rooms have materials that enable teachers to respond to their students and select texts that correspond to students’ instructional reading needs and interests.

Lesson 5: Help students be successful.

Success at school is what teachers want for all of their students. Teachers give students materials they can read, materials that are relevant and motivate and engage. In addition, success builds self-efficacy, the belief that with hard work, it’s possible to move forward.

Closing Thoughts

It’s time to break the barrier of circular thinking—looking for a magic bullet or quick fix that doesn’t exist. Education has had years of basal and computer programs. However, they’re not helping children or teachers. What will make a difference is to develop the finest teachers during pre-service training and continue their learning while they work in a school. Research clearly says it: Teachers make a difference in the lives of their students!

Look for Laura’s next blog, “Invest in Teachers.” She’ll offer ways schools can develop their own ongoing PD programs.

Learn much more from Laura’s book, Differentiating Reading Instruction!