Quality Questioning Techniques for Kindergarten ELA Instruction

Q U A L I T Y Q U E S T I O N I N G A N D C R I T I C A L T H I N K I N G Ebony L. Rowe University of Phoenix CUR/515 Professor Norheim December 17, 2023

G R A D E L E V E L C O N T E N T A R E A : My grade level is Kindergarten, and I teach all content areas in Durham Public Schools. In my district, K-2 are tested on phonemic and foundation skills at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year. Teachers implement English language arts and math curricula that are assessed for accuracy through quarterly module assessments. Our science and social studies standards are integrated through ELA and Math. Throughout this assignment, my focus will be on English Language Arts. In kindergarten, most skills, but not all, are taught through ELA. Our district benchmark assessment Mclass has us administering phonemic awareness, letter naming fluency, word reading, and oral language. The ten quality questions are used throughout the school year within my ELA instruction.

E SS E N T I A L Q U E S T I O N S : Essential Questions are the critical indicators that will guide the module, unit, or lesson that will be implemented. It is the umbrella for sub-questioning that will follow as the module progresses. Essential questions should be prompted at the start of a new topic. For example, if, for December, students will learn about Community heroes, your primary question should dive in and prompt the students with images that help describe and show what a community is, then ask, What makes a community?

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H O O K Q U E S T I O N I N G As stated in the previous slide, I love how essential questions are the umbrella used to lead to sub-questioning based on the module topic. Hook questioning is where you ask questions that allow students to become curious. This is the perfect example of a critical thinking moment being embedded within your lesson plan. This questioning type in Kindergarten would look like this: Have you ever wondered what the community hero that puts out fires does when they are not putting out fires? Their baseline knowledge is that all firefighters do is put out fires. This question will allow them to dig deeper and suggest that they may be checking their monitors and waiting to get calls about fires.

D I A G N O S T I C Q U E S T I O N S Diagnostic questions are stated in ways that give you the opportunity to understand the level of thinking of the person prompting the question. Many questions will provide information, and students will be asked to fill in the blanks based on the information gathered. Continuing with our Community Hero's module, a diagnostic question could be, “Can you name the following community heroes in your neighborhood?”

C H E C K F O R U N D E R S TA N D I N G When checking for understanding, the teacher will prompt questions or discussions to encourage students to reflect on the topic or story. Before transitioning to the next activity, checking for understanding could be a great exit ticket exercise. For example, “Think back to our story, Qunitos Neighborhood. In the story, he explained the jobs for everyone in the neighborhood. Why was each person’s job important? What does each job entail?”

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P R O B I N G Q U E S T I O N S Think of probing questions as prying questions. This is when the teacher prompts questions after the students have answered to push them into a higher level of thinking. These are different from the questions you would ask on day one of the topic, try using these after focusing on the topic for about two days. Yes, a doctor is a community hero, but can you explain the job description of what a doctor does for work to the class?

I N F E R E N C I N G Q U E S T I O N S Inference questions will follow once a student has read or heard a portion of a story. In Kindergarten, Inference would look like using pictures and facial expressions to understand the tone or feelings of the characters. After reading page 5 in A Bucket of Blessings, explain why you think the monkey is sad.

I N T E R P R E T I N G Q U E S T I O N S Interpreting questioning allows students to analyze and provide their critical thinking level to delve more deeply than the expected answer. This is when you want students to offer their perspectives on the topic. Teachers could prompt questions such as : How would that affect our lives if we lived in a world without community heroes? This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC

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T R A N S F E R Q U E S T I O N S Transfer questioning is when you take the topic discussed in class and push for students to find relevancy beyond just your classroom. The teacher encourages them to find relations about the topic in a different setting. For example, the teacher could say she is a community hero because she teaches students. A question that could transfer would be, “Although we are at school with many teachers, many types of community heroes are in our building. Can you find two other community heroes in our school that are not classroom teachers?”

P R E D I C T I O N Q U E S T I O N I N G In Kindergarten, I always prompt my students to make predictions before reading a story. I guide them to look at the front cover and say, “Just by glancing at it and hearing the title, what do you think will take place in this story?” You then let them know there are no right or wrong answers. This allows them to use their imagination and suggest what may take place. Prediction questions are open- ended, with no accurate response required. This Ph oto by Unkno wn Author is license d under CC BY- SA-NC

R E F L E C T I O N Q U E S T I O N S Reflection questions can allow teachers to see areas students confidently know and areas where they could use more support. A reflection question could be prompted after covering a topic and utilized as a hodge-podge wrap-up for the module. Example: Now that you’ve learned about the importance of community heroes, can you challenge yourself to create a compare-and-contrast poster about two community heroes of your choice ?

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S U P P O R T A N D A C C O M M O D AT I O N S ( 5 S T R AT E G I E S ) • Display PowerPoints as a teaching and learning visual for students • Use articulation videos for pronunciation, especially for kindergarten EL learners • Create mobile soundboards with pictures of how your mouth and tongue should be to push out correct sounds • Do mini lessons in small groups for students who need more support on related topics • Use the turn-and-talk method as some students learn more from peers

R E S O U R C E S As stated previously, when integrating quality questioning into your grade level content, you must first consider that it’s grade level appropriate to ask. Being a kindergarten teacher, I must first state that out of the ten quality questioning types discussed in this PowerPoint, we do not use them all for our grade level. Before we can even begin prompting quality questioning in kindergarten, we must prioritize our younger learners in meeting their needs by doing repetitive modeling and visually presenting pictures, PowerPoints, and videos. After the teachers had done an excellent job explaining the material, we then led with the questioning. As a Kindergarten teacher, I suggest starting each topic or module with an essential question. The EQ is used to get their minds flowing and answer based on prior knowledge. Once the module ends, the essential questions should be answered based on what they’ve been taught. Following the critical question, you want to allow the students to experience prediction questioning. This gives them a moment to explore their imagination and predict what may occur in the story or topic being addressed. I always have my students look at the front cover or take a picture and walk through the story for a better visual. Once they’ve had a moment to see the pictures, allow them two minutes to turn and talk to their partner about what they suggest will take place in the story. Always remember to say that there are no right or wrong answers when making predictions. Prediction questions are the most popular quality questioning type that will be used for critical thinking in kindergarten. Next, we should prompt diagnostic questions. These questions are asked as you discuss the topic to ensure that all students understand the level of thinking of how the story and teacher want them to respond. These questions follow reading or discussing things based on our essential questions. For example, at this point, we may have read about three stories about community heroes. Now, you want to give them a moment to think about their community and identify their community heroes. Always relate topics to real-life scenarios. The following three quality questions above are my tips on grade-level appropriateness for kindergarten.

R E F E R E N C E S A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An overview - taylor & francis online. (n.d.-a). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15430421 tip4104_2 Gonzalez, S., Teacher, 2nd Grade, Prescott, J., Alexander, F., Endo, A., Behring, R., Zolbrod, Z., Templeton, Dr. S., Clemens, Dr. N., Cunningham, Dr. A., & Habashi, A. (2022, November 1). HMH into reading: K-6 reading curriculum: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt . HMH Into Reading | K-6 Reading Curriculum | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. https://www.hmhco.com/programs/into-reading Walsh, J. A., & Sattes, B. D. (2011). Thinking through quality questioning. SAGE Publications.

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Quality Questioning

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