SKINNY & FAT QUESTIONS

RATIONALE:  Young children need to develop the ability to ask questions.  Learning how to generate a question will improve their reading comprehension.  The students will learn how to generate questions that correspond to the reading that they have done.

MATERIALS:  PowerPoint Presentation, newspapers-1 copy per student

PROCEDURES:

1. Review: - What is a question?  What does it contain?  What makes it different from a statement?

2. Ask the students: - Why do I ask you questions after you read a selection or a story?

3. Explain:- I ask you questions to make sure that you fully understand or comprehend what you have read.  Today you will be learning how to come up with your own questions after you have read a selection.  Being able to come up with your own questions ensures me that you understand the reading material.

4. Start PowerPoint Presentation: - Read through slide two and proceed to slide three.

5. Explain: -  Since you are going to be coming up with your own questions, I need to explain the difference between a FAT and a skinny question. (READ THROUGH NEXT 2 SLIDES TO EXPLAIN THIS DIFFERENCE)

6. THE QUESTIONS THAT WE WILL BE GENERATING TODAY WILL BE FAT QUESTIONS!

7. Let students give examples of fat questions to the class.

8. PASS OUT NEWSPAPERS TO STUDENTS-1 PER STUDENT

9. PICK OUT AN ARTICLE FOR THE CLASS TO READ AND GIVE AMPLE ENOUGH TIME SO EVERYONE CAN FINISH

10. WE WILL GENERATE OUR FIRST QUESTION TOGETHER SO EVERYONE WILL KNOW HOW TO DO IT!

11. (NEXT SLIDE) REFER TO P0WERPOINT:
1. What is the most important thing or idea discussed in the selection or article?
2. What happened in the selection or article? (action that occurred)
(REMEMBER TO TELL THE CHILDREN THAT IT IS OKAY IF YOU NEED TO REFER BACK TO THE TEXT TO COME UP WITH YOUR QUESTION)

12.  (NEXT SLIDE)  AFTER YOU HAVE GENERATED YOUR QUESTION, YOU WANT TO USE THESE STEPS TO SEE IF THE QUESTION IS A FAT QUESTION!
1. Is the question I generated directly related to the material in the text?
2. Does the question that I generated capture large units of meaning?
3. Does my question have an answer that must be explained?
4. Can I answer the question that I generated?
5. Can my peers answer the question that I generated?

     13. NOW GIVE THE STUDENTS ANOTHER ARTICLE TO READ, GENERATE A QUESTION, CHECK TO SEE IF QUESTION IS A FAT  QUESTION (LEAVE POWERPOINT ON THIS SLIDE SO STUDENTS  CAN REFER TO SLIDE FOR STEPS), AND GIVE TO A PARTNER TO SEE IF THE PARTNER CAN ANSWER THE QUESTION.   (assessment includes partner being able to answer the other partner’s question, which means that question was a well generated question, which encourages reading comprehension)

14.  Discuss the questions that the students have generated and allow the students to ask questions and make changes to their generated questions.
 

REFERENCE:
 

Pressley, M., Johnson, C., Symons, S., McGoldrick, J., & Kurita, J. (1989). Strategies That Improve Children’s Memory and

     Comprehension of Text. The Elementary School Journal, 90, 3-29.

PowerPoint Presentation

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