NOTE: If you participated in the MSM-PREP research study and are looking for the toolkit used during your participation, please email christymurray@austin.utexas.edu so you can obtain the private link.

About the Practice

QUESTION GENERATION is a reading comprehension practice that teaches students to write questions about important information or facts from a text while they are reading.  This helps students pause, think about what is being communicated, and how informatin relates across paragraphs. Studies have shown that this practice can increase comprehension of content area text.

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Students use a 3-step process:

Step 1) Read a text, either in small groups, pairs, or independently.

Step 2) Pause at regular intervals to generate questions and record them in a learning log or journal.

Step 3) Answer questions and indicate where the answer was found in the text.

Students are taught to write two different types of questions: specific questions and wide questions

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Professional Development Resources

PD Module–Secondary Reading Instruction: Teaching Vocabulary and Comprehension in the Content Areas (IRIS Center)

Research to Practice Article in Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy (Middle School Matters)

Demonstration Videos

Generating Questions Video Page (Texas Adolescent Literacy Academy)

Example Model Lessons

Modeling Specific Questions (Middle School Matters)

Modeling Wide Questions (Middle School Matters)

Instructional Materials

Student Cue Card (Middle School Matters)

Question Log (Middle School Matters)

Classroom Poster (Middle School Matters)

Sources for Other Reading Passages

Need Help?

Contact us at msmi-info@meadowscenter.org