Questioning

Today the class were desperate to share their Easter weekend news with me and the entire class instead of in their buzz groups. I thought it was a great opportunity to take a snapshot of their speaking and also their questioning.

I am desperate to expand childrens thinking and questioning skills and we have begun some work on this - not getting very far up until swimming finished. So far, we have really only just touched the surface, discussing briefly: what questions are, why we need/use them, what question words can we use and we've started gathering some exemplar questions using the 3-2-1 method (What would you ask Maui/Easter Bunny?).

My results have confirmed the need to have a focus in this area. Of the 60 questions asked...

• 20 were yes/no
• 30 were one word/closed questions
• 10 were open questions

The most popular question words were did/do/does (11), how (11), what (10) and was (8).


12 questions were asked by one student and 5 each from another 2 students.


Where to?

• Integrate questioning into everything!!!!
• Discuss questioning types, probing for extra information
• Encourage thinking and give plenty of opportunites for students