Support the development of ACTIVE THINKING at home to encourage awareness and thoughtful consideration of details and the development of meaningful evidence supported ideas. These OPEN-ENDED questions elicit more than a "yes" or "no " answer and can be asked to support any content area.
- What's an idea you have about this?
- What do you mean by that?
- What makes you say that, what's your evidence?
- Is there other evidence that supports this idea?
- Why or how does this evidence support your idea, what does this evidence show?
- What strategy did you choose to solve this or complete this?
- Why did you feel this was the best strategy?
- Is there another strategy that could have been used?
- How could you prove your answer?
- How can you show your thinking?
The following active thinking questions work well when discussing student reading ... of any 4th grade and up text. Parents, you DO NOT need to read the text to ask these questions. You can infer your child's comprehension by their ability to answer the question.
- What did you visualize as you were reading this part?
- What questions did you have about the characters or story plot as you were reading?
- What connections could you make about your reading tonight?
- What's happening to your character right now ... how might they be feeling about that, what's their perspective?
- Did you have to revise a prior idea you had about the character or plot...why?
- What's an interpretation you made about the character or plot ... why?