Teachers' use of questioning and modelling comprehension skills in primary classrooms

Parker, M., & Hurry, J. (2007). Teachers' use of questioning and modelling comprehension skills in primary classrooms. Educational Review, 59(3), 299-314.

Background

Research indicated that the explicit teaching of comprehension strategies that were internalised and used by skilled readers, especially of self-regulating strategies to generate questions about text, could enhance students’ understanding of the text.

Aims

The study examined how teachers perceived the teaching of text comprehension, the extent to which teachers explicitly taught comprehension strategies, and the number of opportunities provided for students to generate their own questions.

Sample

The sample consisted of 51 English language teachers teaching seven- to 11-year-old students in 13 inner London primary schools.

Method

Data included interviews and classroom observations of the teachers conducting literacy sessions. Classroom observations were video-recorded and coded. Out of the 86 literacy events identified, 12 events that comprised mainly observations of the teaching of reading comprehension were selected.

Findings

The interviews indicated that the teachers regarded direct teacher questioning to be an important strategy for teaching comprehension. The two most frequently cited questioning types were propositional (questioning for the literal meaning of the text or recall of facts) and inferential (deduction, prediction and empathy) questioning. Evaluative questioning (questioning for personal response) was the most neglected strategy and the children’s own questioning of the text was not given considerable emphasis. There was a close match between the results from the interviews and the classroom observations. Seventy per cent of the teaching approaches were observed to be in the form of direct oral questioning. Both sets of data revealed that 50% of the teachers’ questions were at the literal/propositional level, 48% at the inferential level and 2% at the evaluative level. Questions initiated by the children only amounted to 5% of the interactions. The teacher-child interactions demonstrated that the most prevalent form of teacher response was one in which it was used to evaluate rather than to build on student ideas. Only 18% of the teacher’s responses developed student ideas. The most dominant response was an unelaborated affirmative ‘yes’ that provided little opportunity for the exchange of ideas.

Implications

The author highlighted that a substantial proportion of the observed classroom practice showed a wide and varied use of good comprehension strategies being modelled by the teachers. However, while some modelled strategies might be internalized by the children without the teachers knowing it, teacher modelling could be developed and made more effective if these strategies were highlighted to the children explicitly and the children were provided the opportunity to practice them.

Original article retrieved from Taylor and Francis online.