Teach and Explore the Questioning Comprehension Strategy

The questioning comprehension strategy is all about helping students become curious, active readers who engage deeply with what they read. By asking questions before, during and after reading, students learn to monitor their understanding and make sense of texts in a meaningful way.

This 22-slide teaching presentation provides everything you’ll need to teach this valuable reading comprehension strategy to your students. It includes the following content: 

• A definition of the questioning strategy
• An explanation of how and when to use the strategy
• Examples of metacognitive questions to ask when applying the strategy
• A guided, whole-class activity (based on a literary text)
• Check for understanding activities

This resource will help your students make the shift from passive reading to active thinking by asking meaningful questions that enhance understanding of texts.

Read on to learn more about why this strategy is so important to explicitly teach to our students.

Why Reading Comprehension Questioning Strategies Are Essential

Teaching reading comprehension questioning strategies equips students with lifelong skills that extend well beyond the classroom. It encourages deeper thinking, improves understanding and builds confident, independent readers.

Here’s why it’s so valuable:

• Encourages curiosity – Thinking about and developing questions while reading drives student curiosity and keeps engagement levels high.
• Improves comprehension monitoring – Questioning while reading helps students recognize when something in the text doesn’t make sense. 
• Supports deeper understanding – When students question the text, they move beyond surface-level responses to more thoughtful, inference-based insights.

Download to Teach Questioning as a Comprehension Strategy

If you’re ready to bring this resource to life in your classroom, simply click the green Download button! Here, you can choose either the Microsoft PowerPoint or a Google Slides version of this resource. Please note that if you select the Google Slides version, you will be prompted to make a copy of the file on your personal drive before accessing it.

No need to spend hours planning and creating your own materials – just download, display and guide your students as they begin asking meaningful questions that unlock deeper understanding of texts.

Lindsey Phillips, a teacher in Michigan and a Teach Starter collaborator, contributed to this resource.

Techniques to Complement the Asking Questions Comprehension Strategy

Questioning is one of the many reading comprehension strategies we teach to our students in the elementary school setting. If you’re looking for resources to support you in teaching these essential strategies, Teach Starter has you covered!

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Main Idea Fiction Worksheets

Use these main idea fiction worksheets to help students confidently identify key ideas and supporting details in engaging, real-world texts

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Prediction vs Inference Teaching Slides

Use this prediction vs inference teaching presentation to help your students tell the difference between these two essential reading comprehension strategies.

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Making Text Connections Graphic Organizer

A graphic organizer to use with students when making connections with a piece of text.