Company
Kentucky Teacher Shares Strategies for
Teaching Comprehension Questions
Part 2: Literal Question
Comprehension Questions Bookmark
To help remind students of these strategies for answering the comprehension questions, download and print a free Comprehension Questions Bookmark for your students.
The bookmark can help students focus on what is required to answer each type of question correctly.
View the
bookmark
Continuing last month’s feature on teaching the comprehension questions, this month we will provide a strategy for teaching students to answer the "literal" questions (questions 2 and 7).
Most Read Naturally stories include five common types of comprehension questions: main idea, literal, vocabulary, inferential, and short answer. It is important for students to understand the different types of questions and have strategies to answer them.
Angela Walker Foster from Anderson County Schools in Lawrenceburg, KY has provided a great instructional strategy for teaching the comprehension questions, and we're excited to share the strategy with you.
Literal: You can find the answer right there in the story.
- Provide each of your students with the same five stories.
- Explain to the students what the term "literal" means: You can find the answer right there in the story.
- Display the definition of "literal" so the students can see it, and highlight the key words in the definition that students need to remember: right there in the story.
- Read the story aloud with the students.
- Examine each possible answer to the literal question. Go through the story as a group searching for the sentence that contains the answer. Explain to the students that they should be able to underline the answer in the story.
- As a group, choose the correct option.
- Repeat steps 4 through 6 using the second story. Make sure everyone understands how you are getting the answer. This is a think-aloud activity.
- Ask the students to try to find the answer to the literal question on their own for the third story.
- After each student has selected his/her answer, review each of the possible answer options as a group. Talk about the answer options and the answers everyone selected. Review why they chose their answers.
- Repeat steps 8 through 9 using the fourth story.
- Use the fifth story as an assessment to determine whether the students understand how to find the answer to a literal question. If they are still unable to find the answer, choose a few more stories to practice as a group. As with any new lesson, some students will need more practice and instruction than other students.
Part 1: Teaching the Main Idea Question
Part 3: Teaching the Vocabulary Question
Part 4: Teaching the Inferential Question
Part 5: Teaching the Short-Answer Question
