Asking Questions to Improve Understanding

This activity will help you to learn skills so you can effectively ask questions about a text.

 

Top Tips:

When reading a new text, it can really help to do some 'text marking'.

This is when you use a highlighter to circle or mark key information as you go.

You can highlight tricky words, interesting words, similes and other language devices the author has used.

When doing this, you may find you are asking questions, such as, "why has the author used that word?" "What does that tricky word mean?"

 

Retrieving information:

When you read a new text and ask questions, you will find you are asking retrieval type questions.

Often, these type of key questions begin with, "who, what, where, when, why, how..."

Sometimes you will find the answer to your question easily, other times, you may have to dig a little deeper.

 

For example:

If it were a text about a journey into space, you may ask, "how long did she stay in space?"

You would then re-scan the text to retrieve the exact length of time.

 

Inference questions:

You may also find that when you read a text, you ask inference questions.

Inference questions require you to look for more clues in order for you to be able to answer them.

You may ask yourself, "how do I know what Bill planned to do next?"

When you ask an inference question, you should always use 'because' in your answer.

 

In this activity, there will be a mixture of multiple choice style questions and also questions in which you will need to type the answer in your own words. The questions will be based on a range of different texts.

It is beneficial to practise answering both types of question to prepare you for the SATS reading paper.

 

Now it's over to you!