Questioning

      "Why Ask? Questioning Strategies in the Classroom" is a great chapter in our text by Fisher and Frey discussing the benefits of questioning to literacy, and how creating quality questions is vital to our students' growth and understanding of literacy. I have often experienced that awkward pause in a classroom when the teacher asks, "so does any one have any questions?" and no one answers. The funny part, is that usually, the students do have questions, but since there is no structure set forth (especially in the younger grades) for the questioning process, the students simply chose to ask a friend, rather than ask the teacher. However, this chapter is not simply about classroom questions, but how using the idea of questioning is beneficial to our students, and can be used in a very structured way to make sure that students are learning to question the text, the authors, the teacher, and themselves in order to learn most effectively.
       Fisher and Frey assert that "The self-monitoring of understanding that comes from self-questioning is underutilized by poor readers. In turn, these struggling readers learn to dislike reading because it is unsatisfying and the concepts of the textbook language are unfamiliar" (p. 83). I would have to agree with this statement, and say that it is a similar situation to the classroom experience, in which poor students who do not use questioning often leave confused about assignments or instruction, and therefore do not enjoy the class. When a reader does not use questioning to help clarify unknowns in a text, their comprehension suffers, and therefore the cyclical problems in reading continue to occur as the reader is unable to advance in understanding. I think it is important to share strategies with our students, especially those poor readers, that can help them learn to use questioning in a structured format that will enable them to gain content information to increase comprehension of the text.
     One strategy that I really like that is expounded upon in this chapter is ReQuest. This technique for reciprocal questioning of both the teacher and then students, is a great way to build upon prior knowledge, vocabulary, and clarify confusing concepts or statements through classroom discussion. This strategy works well for content areas, such as social studies because the questioner can break text into small manageable parts to ensure good comprehension. Something that I have a question about though, is can this strategy be used in small groups? Could group leaders take turns being responsible for a passage and be questioners, and so forth? Or is this a strategy in which the teacher needs to be the only questioner?