Questions Come From Interest
What does
your child wonder about?
Emily A. Swan, Ph.D.
Have you
been reading to your children? Have you been talking to them about books?
Last week, I
talked about ways to make reading more fun and interesting for you and your
children. Two of those ways involve questions.
This week, I
am going to talk about the topic of QUESTIONS and how important your child’s
questions are to teaching you about your child’s interests. If
we really listen to our children’s questions and what they wonder, we will
truly gain insights into their thinking! When we know what our children’s
interests are and what they wonder, finding the right books is easy!
The Importance of QUESTIONS
“WHY?”
How many thousands of times have your children asked you this question? How
many times have you secretly wished you could remove just a small portion of
your child’s frontal lobe after the 47th time s/he asks it in the same day? But, let me tell you… it’s a
good thing you can’t! Questions are the secret to learning. Questions are the
secret to interest! Questions are the tools our children give to us so we can
help them gain knowledge through reading.
These
are the reasons WHY questions are so important to learning:
1.
Questions
are diagnostic tools! You know exactly what your child is
thinking when they ask a question. Their question is what is on their mind
right now. And really, until that
question gets answered, the child has a difficult time moving on. So rather
than answering the question for your
child, try and answer with another question, such as: “I’m not sure, what do
you think?” Reflecting the question back on the child allows them to solve the
problem, figure out sources for the answer, and they will retain the answer for longer periods of time than if we
just answer their questions for them.
2.
Questions
make more sense to kids when we phrase them as, “What do you wonder?”
rather than, “What questions do you
have?” Kids wonder about everything. Tapping into this wonder is what makes reading
and learning FUN.
a.
Do you have a child within a 2 minute
radius of you right now? Go ahead. Go and ask your child, (any age will do),
“What are you wondering about?” if they are 5, they might tell you for 30
minutes. If they are 16, they may grunt and say, “nothing. Why?” So, right there—what did you learn?? Who has
more curiosity? Maybe it’s your 16 year old. GREAT! Feed that curiosity with
things to help your child find answers to their own “wonderings.” Ask them what
the answers are and how they found them.
3.
Questions
have different levels of answers, which yield different levels of knowledge.
For example, some questions are pretty thin.
“Who was buried in Grant’s tomb?” has a pretty thin or simple answer.
But “What do you know about Grant’s life and death?” might be a bit thicker question, which will probably
take a little longer explanation. The simpler or thinner the question, the easier the question is to answer,
resulting in simple or concrete knowledge.
A thicker question, however, may take
more reading, more thinking, more time, and more resources to answer. Thicker questions result in much deeper
levels of knowledge, more abstract thinking, and more complex explanations.
4.
Questions
are a GREAT reason to read books! Do you know how roly-poly bugs have
babies? Do you know all the constellations in the summer sky? Do you know the
state bird of Maryland? Do you know why May 17th was an important
day to George Washington and the Patriots during the American Revolutionary
War? If not, START READING!! Reading is
the #1 way to answer questions!
5.
The
only stupid question is the one you already know how to answer. Here’s
a real life story about this principle. I was a reading consultant in Iowa for several
years. I worked with some great teachers, teaching them how to engage their
students more deeply. One 6th grade (really smart) science teacher,
who had recently begun a unit on Energy, had asked his students what they knew
about Energy and what they wondered about Energy. He had their questions
written on sentence strips up on the wall. He had a large class and when I went
to Iowa for a visit, I observed his classroom and I noticed that there were
only about 7 or 8 questions up on the wall, which made me curious. I asked him,
“Why don’t you have all of the
students’ questions on the wall?” His reply was, “Oh, those are the only good questions.” I then asked, “Who
determines which question is good enough
to go up on the wall?” and he replied, “I
do. The rest of the questions are too
dumb to put on the wall.” Of course, I asked to see the other questions.
Keep in mind that I am NOT a scientist, nor do I claim to be. But I do know how
to engage kids in science using literacy principles; so I was very curious to
read the other students’ questions that hadn’t made it onto the wall. When I
looked at the questions, I thought they were pretty good, simply because I
didn’t know how to answer them either! I felt just like the 6th
graders, wondering the same things! I said to the teacher, “What is wrong with
these questions? They look good to me. Why do you think they are dumb?” and the
teacher replied, “Oh those are so easy to answer.” And my response was, “Yes.
To a scientist they probably are easy. But to a 6th grader, or even
to me, they are not easy at all because we don’t have enough knowledge to
answer them. That’s why you are the teacher and they are the 6th
graders!”
My point is:
The only dumb question is the one in
which you already know the answer! All
other questions are where you are (or where your child is) in the learning process. So listen to your kids’
questions, even if you think they are easy to
answer. Remember, you’re the adult. So of course they’re easy for YOU to answer!!
Action
Plan for This Week: LISTEN
to your children’s questions. Write them down if you can. Pay attention. YOU,
as a parent, will discover things about your child that will help you engage
them in learning.
Next
week I will provide a list of some of my favorite books I have
read to and with my children! Hopefully, the list will give you some ideas for
fun summer reading!
If
you are interested in
how to build literacy skills over the summer with your preschooler or Kindergartener.
. . My business partner Michelle Roderick and I have created a tool for parents
to maximize the time they spend reading to their young children. One tool that
will soon be available to parents, grandparents, babysitters, or other
caretakers, is our product called DiscoverLit
Kits. These wonderful kits are designed around a book (e.g., Bugs) and we
have written research-based activities around these wonderful books that
increase comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, word study/phonics, and writing.
We include easy step-by-step instructions for mothers and others that are easy
to follow. We also integrate math, science, or art into our kits to extend
learning. They help parents and children discover the fun of literacy. . .in a
kit. The kit ships right to your door and all of the materials for the
activities are included IN the kit. Simply choose an activity per day. Do as
many or as few as you want. You can do them in any order. Easy. Convenient.
Portable. We take parents and young children through the steps of creating
interest, questioning, discovering, reading, sharing, and making connections.
Our goal is to help parents know how to prepare their Preschooler or Kindergartener
for school during the summer months. We will soon have kits for grades K-1 too.
By fall, we’ll have kits for grades 2-3 and 3-4. We are excited to be able to
help parents motivate their children in fun, meaningful ways that truly build
lifelong skills and build special relationships between parent and child, by
reading together.
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