Last week, I announced that I was going to begin a blog series on exploring the ELA standards. Today, I bring you the first blog post in the series. I am going to start with the first standard in Literature AND Informational domains.
[Ask and Answer Questions]
Standards
Here are the standards we will be studying for this blog post.
The ask and answer standard spans kindergarten, first, second, and third grade, as well as both domains (informational and literature).
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.1- With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.1- With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.1- Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.1- Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.1- Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate an understanding of key details in a text.
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.1 – Ask and answer questions to demonstrate an understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.1- Ask and answer questions to demonstrate an understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.
Five Key Tasks for Teachers:
1. Get students’ prior knowledge on questioning with an anchor chart and lots of accountable talk.
Make sure students know how to answer a text. Try with a very basic fictional text that they know well, such as The Three Little Pigs or Goldilocks. Have them create a few questions and answer a few questions with a partner. If you’re studying informational texts, show images of items and ask them to create questions based on the pictures. Or find a popular topic that primary students like, such as dinosaurs or sharks and ask questions for them to answer.
2. Distinguish between asking and answering questions.
(Anchor chart from my RL1.1, RL2.1, RL3.1 Mini Lesson)
Teaching students to answer questions is much easier (at least for me) than teaching them to ask questions. Students have answered questions their entire lives. They know the skill of listening to the question and figuring out the answer. The skill of reading a text and asking questions before, during, and after is a tough skill in teaching.
(Printables taken from my RL2.1 pack.)
Using passages and real fiction/nonfiction stories are very important for kiddos to get practice. Whether you’re teaching them to ask about an informational topic or a fictional story they just read, students will need to learn how to answer text-based questions and ask questions based on pictures and events in the text.
3. Distinguish between thick and thin questions.
(Anchor chart from my RI.1.1 and RI.2.1 mini lesson)
Whether they’re called thick, thin, strong, simple, or easy-peasy, teaching students to go DEEPER with their questioning is very important. We started by making an anchor chart and using given questions on the topic of sharks. Students have to decide if the question asked was a strong question or a simple question.
(Mini-Lesson Anchor Chart-toppers and Printable taken from my RL.3.1 pack.)
Students will need practice in defining the difference between strong and simple questions. BUT don’t stop with just that activity. As they work through asking and answering question lessons (and even in day to day lessons), make sure that student’s answers are always strong and text-based.
4. Teach the text-based strategy.
(Activity taken from my RI.1.1 and RI.2.1 lesson)
Text-evidence is a huge skill for primary students. Teaching them how to find an answer by looking back in their text will help them throughout middle school, high school, and college. The more they practice, the stronger they will get.
(Passage and Questions taken from RL.3.1)
(Passage taken from RI.1.1)
5. Let them practice in many different ways.
While passages and comprehension questions are always a huge skill for students to master, we don’t want to limit them to the same activity each day. During my centers and small group activities, I would try to use task cards and interactive notebook activities to help practice the same skill while still changing things up.
Ideas for Practice:
- Turn and Talk activities whole group
- Task Cards
- Interactive Notebooks
- Passages
- Read to Self Self-Checking Cards
- Read to Someone Self-Checking Cards
(Task cards taken from RL.2.1)
(Interactive Notebook Template taken from RL.2.1)
Mentor Texts for Ask & Answer Questions
Need some strong read alouds and mentor texts for this standard? All the books that are linked below are linked to affiliate Amazon links.
Ask and Answer Questions (RL1.1, RL2.1, RL3.1)-Key skills to hit- questioning, inferring, predicting
Why by Richard Torrey
The Raft by Jim LaMarche
Poppleton by Cynthia Rylant
First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg
Baghead by Jarret Krosoczka
Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting
Ask and Answer Questions (RI.1.1, RI.2.1, RI.3.1)
-Key skills to hit- answer text-dependent questions and ask strong questions for more information
- Odd Boy Out by Don Brown
- Hurricanes! by Gail Gibbons
- What Makes a Magnet? by Franklyn Branley
- What If You Had Animal Ears? by Sandra Markle
- Whose Tools are These? by Sharon Katz Cooper
- A Tree is a Plant by Clyde Robert Bulla
Grab your grade level’s resources:
Kindergarten RLK.1 RIK.1 & First Grade RL1.1 RI1.1
2nd Grade RL.2.1 RI.2.1 & Third Grade RL3.1 RI3.1
This blog post is the first post in a blog series! Next up is retelling and recounting!
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