Checking for Understanding-ReQuest

ReQuest is a strategy designed to teach students to ask questions and think of the answers while they are reading. In the book, Checking for Understanding, studies have shown that students who engage in questioning while reading improve their comprehension. I tried this strategy out with my son's Battle of the Book team. Since we are a book club and not a class, we had to alter the strategy. The team had to read 16 books to prepare for the Jeorpordy type question and answer competition. Intially, parents meet with the students and had them answer questions from the Accelerated Reader program on the school computer. Once the students got into the routine of answering questions about their readings we (the parents) asked the students questions. We did this for several meetings and then once we were sure that all the books had been read by the students, we asked the students to come up with questions to ask each other. They did a terrific job. They started out asking knowledge questions and then comprehension content type questions. It worked out great.

I did not ask these students to ask questions of each other until they had read the whole book. I tried to get the kids to write down questions while they were reading but they really had trouble stopping their readings to write down a question. I did finally tell them to just think of questions while they were reading and that at the end of the book they could write down the questions. Most of the students didn't write down the questions but they did have the questions in their minds when it was time to ask their team mates questions. These students will be Battling through April, so they will continue to review their books and ask each other questions.

P.S. They won their first Battle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!