Reading books with your little one is one of the most valuable experiences you can offer them. Reading a book isn’t just about the words on the page, it’s about the conversations that the story can lead to. If you’d like to learn how to use your shared reading time to accelerate your child’s vocabulary growth, you’ve come to the right place.
In today’s article, we’re going to take a look at the best types of questions you can ask your child when reading with them. We’ve chosen these questions based on a framework we refer to in Speech Pathology called ‘Blank’s Levels of Questioning’. This framework breaks down different types of questions into the age range in which typically developing children acquire the skills to understand and answer them effectively.
The Best Questions to Ask When Reading to Your Child
To create an enjoyable reading experience and effectively engage your child in a conversation, you’ll need to make sure that you are asking questions at a level that your child will understand. Below are the four main levels of questions:
Level 1 Questions:
(Appropriate for approximately 3 years of age):
- Matching e.g. Can you find one like this?
- Naming objects e.g. What is this?
- Naming people e.g. Who is this?
- Naming actions e.g. What is he doing?
Level 2 Questions:
(Appropriate for approximately 4 years of age)
- Describe the scene e.g. What happened?
- Identify and describe characteristics of an object e.g. What colour is it? What shape is it?
- Remembering information e.g. Who/what/where?
- Finishing sentences e.g. the cow jumped over the…
Level 3 Questions:
(Appropriate for approximately 4.5 years of age)
- Describe an event that may happen e.g. What might happen next?
- Give directions e.g. Tell me what to do.
- Following 2 Stage instructions e.g. Do this and then do this.
- Identifying similarities e.g. How are these the same?
Level 4 Questions:
(Emerging abilities seen at 5 and continuing to develop up to 6 years of age)
- Predicting e.g. What will happen if…
- Justifying prediction e.g. Why will that happen?
- Identifying the cause of an event e.g. Why did that happen?
- Provide a solution to a problem e.g. What could we do instead
Each level adds to the complexity of the questions and encourages understanding of what is happening in the book. These questions support your child to build and strengthen their language skills. Reading the text and relating it to the pictures is also an important step to increase your child’s level of understanding.
If you are concerned with your child’s reading skills or their ability to answer age-appropriate questions, please do not hesitate to contact our friendly team to book in time for a chat.
We hope you’ve found some fresh inspiration for your speech therapy session planning. If you already have these resources in your resource cupboard – great! If not, it might be time to put together a list of new resources to add to your clinic. Did someone say Kmart shopping spree?
For more Speech Pathology career tips and inspiration, have a read of our blog.
