School Readiness Skills: Answering Questions

We all know how important it is to read orally to young children. When we share books, in any language, we are modeling fluent reading, including expressive ‘voices,’ proper phrasing, and an appropriate pace. Oral reading supports vocabulary development as children begin to understand that clues to understanding new words can be found in the context of a paragraph and in text features, such as pictures. All of these are necessary components of a child’s future reading success.

But beyond that, we can use the pictures to help give children the idea that we need to use a book (text) to answer questions. This helps children understand the importance of using facts to support our answers. In school, children will be required to answer text-dependent questions. We can help develop this school-ready skill, not to mention that using facts as the basis for responding to questions and forming opinions, helps develop an educated society. 

Here is an example of how you can do this for preschoolers.

From Llama Llama Mad At Mama by Anna Dewdney.

You can easily use the pictures in age-appropriate books to help children respond to questions. In the example picture above, you can ask literal questions like, “What colors are in Llama’s shirt?” After a child answers, you should ask the child to point to the part of the picture that shows the answer is correct. Of course, the child should point to Llama’s shirt.  Literal questions and answers like this are easy to turn into text dependent questions. But, we can and should go beyond the literal level of comprehension.

Ask deeper questions about characters, which are still part of preschoolers' abilities. For example, you might ask, “How is Llama feeling?” This is not a literal question, but it is still possible to use facts from the picture to support a child’s claim. Most children would respond that Llama feels mad. Then ask, “What makes you think that?” Children need to use details from the picture like the look in Llama’s eyes, the shape of Llama’s mouth, or his tongue being out as facts that resulted in them say, “mad.”

Asking all children to support their responses with details from a text is important as it helps everyone develop a sense that facts matter! 

Standards Alignment:

NAEYC - 2.E.
Head Start - VII.A.