“Through the planning and implementation of questions that require high level thinking, educators foster the kind of engagement and critical thinking skills that students will need to process and address new situations.” (Nappi, 2017, p. 30).

Reading Comprehension Question Response Inventory

Reading is an active process. Guszak (1967) said, “In 1917, Thorndike outlined a classic definition of reading in three words when he said, ‘Reading is thinking.’” (p. 227). Guszak reported a study focusing on what questioning strategies teachers use with their students and if there are certain characteristics within a reading mini-lesson (1967). In a study of second, fourth, and sixth grade teachers, he found in a reading comprehension response inventory that teachers employed: recognition, recall, translation, conjecture, explanation, and evaluation. These skills build upon each other, bringing students deeper and deeper into the comprehension process.

1. Recognition

• Asking questions to prompt students to identify specific parts of a story or the literal information they find within a text.

• The most basic of comprehension skills.

• Recognize the information read.

2. Recall

• Also asks readers to understand literal information in a text.

• Asks students to recall information based on what they read within a text.

• Students simply produce the information to answer a lower level question correctly.

3. Translation

• Calls students to retell a story, draw a picture baed upon a scene or information from a text, or make sense of metaphors or symbolism in a text.

• Asks students to translate the story into their own way of thinking and making sense of a text.

• Takes students in to a text by asking them to change words, ideas, or pictures into symbolic form, abstract to concrete, long in length to shortened and brief, etc.

4. Conjecture

• Anticipatory questioning or predictive of what will come next in a text.

• Asking students to make a prediction about what will come next in a text.

5. Explanation

• Prompts students to inference and find rational behind that inference.

• Students must develop contextual proof, basing a conclusion or rationale for the inference.

6. Evaluation

• Asks for students' opinions about a text.

• Asks students to rate a character, the story as a whole, or an idea.

• Call students to make a choice between two options laid out by the teacher or asking probability questions.