Question-Answer-Relationships

Why Kids Need Higher-Level Questioning

• Students tap into prior knowledge and make connections.

• Allows students to problem solve.

• Promotes generalizations.

• It is the path to understanding, rather than simply to memory.

• Increases engagement

Bloom’s Misinterpreted

“What we need to understand is that memorizing itself requires imagination, reasoning, reorganizing, and practice.

Analysis, synthesis, and evaluation are not rewards for lower-level accomplishment but the actual tools by which we acquire learning.”

Teaching What Matters Most by Strong, Silver, and Perini

Question-Answer-Relationships

We want to use strategy instruction with our students. This is based on the following premise:

“If they can’t do it, it is just because they don’t have the strategy.”

QAR can be used for any subject area. This is especially important in reading instruction.

Skills/Habits of Effective Readers

• Predict• Visualize• Connect• Question• Clarify• Summarize• Evaluate

How many of these skills and habits can be fostered if we only use recall questioning?

Four Types of Question-Answer-Responses

RIGHT THERE! (Lower Bloom’s Taxonomy)

The reader is able to find the exact answer to the question in the text. The questions are very literal.

Four Types of Question-Answer-Responses

In The Book Question (Still Lower Bloom’s Taxonomy)

The reader is able to find the answer in the text, but he/she must search the text to find it.

Four Types of Question-Answer-Responses

Author and Me! (Inferences)

The reader must look for clues and evidence in the text and then combine that with what they already know to answer the question.

Four Types of Question-Answer-Responses

ON MY OWN (Higher Level Blooms: Synthesis and Evaluation)

The reader uses prior

knowledge and experiences to

answer the question.

Why? What if? Compare?

Explain. Decide. Create.

Teach Students QARS

• Expose the secret! Teach students the types of questions. Put a chart on the board. Let them “catch” you using only one type of questioning.

• Have students classify questions-Not Answer Them.

• Generate questions in a cooperative group.• Be diligent!