You may wonder why one would even use this strategy at all. Well, first and foremost it
greatly improves your students’ reading comprehension. It
helps students think about
the text that they are reading. It teaches students how to
ask questions and lastly, encourages students
to think creatively and challenges them to use higher order thinking skills.
Now there are 4 types of questions that students will
encounter that I want to talk about.
The first is “Right there” QARs -- These are answers that
are literally right there in the
text. Example: the question might be: “What color was the
boy’s bike?” Well, when you
refer back to the text, you find that the boy’s bike was
red. Well, that would be a right
there answer, because the answer is literally right
there. Making sense?
Next, we come to “Think & search” QAR’s. Now you find
the answers to think and
search QAR’s by reading through various parts of the text
or the chapter – I kind of refer to this as reading between the lines. It’s
been my experience that think and search
QAR’s were difficult at first for my students, because they
were so used to seeing the
answer pop up right there – but after lots of explicit
instruction and practice they
eventually got better and better at it.
This leads us to the next QAR referred to as “Author and
you.” Now these kinds of
answers are found in the text; however, the student must
relate it to their own
experiences. Now just to be clear, the answer does not
appear directly in the text, so
the student must have read the text in order to answer the
question. In other words, the
students after reading the text, brings it back to his/her
own life experience to answer
the question.
Lastly, the “On my own” QAR answers. It’s important to note
here that these types of
answers do not require that the student read the passage at
all. So, therefore, the
student must use their own background knowledge to answer
that type of question.
For instance: If I were to ask you: “What are some of your
favorite sports?”
Well, you wouldn’t need to read any particular text to
answer that question. You would
simply state your personal preference – there’s no right or
wrong answer here.
Now after teaching my students the 4 different QAR’s, it
was time to put this strategy into effect.
When I first started teaching this concept to my students I
would start with a rather easy
to read simple text and read it aloud to my students. I
began with the right there
question. I would have a few already made questions for the
class. Then after reading a
the question, I would model how I got the “right there” answer.
During each QAR session I would introduce a new type of
QAR: ie: think & search,
author & you and on your own. Here again, I would have
preselected questions, read
the text and model the strategy. After which, I would show
students how to find the
information to answer the question. I have used QAR with my
students when reading
social studies, science and math information from their
textbooks. This process worked
great for independent and group or partner work.
As time went on, I would gradually increase the length and
complexity of the reading
assignments. The students would continue to use QAR through
the school year. It
wasn’t just taught once as a lesson and forgotten about.
There is so much more that can be said about QAR, and we
just skimmed the surface,
If you are interested in learning more about the QAR
concept, I’d like to recommend a
book that will get you up to speed about the process. It’s
called, QAR Now – A powerful
and practical framework that develops comprehension and
higher-order thinking in all
students. The authors are Taffy E. Raphael, Kathy Highfield
and Kathryn H. Au
In conclusion, I’d recommend introducing QAR as early in
the beginning of the year as
you can – obviously, the earlier the better, so that kids
have enough time to enhance
their comprehension skills. Also, it would be great to use
QAR systematically as part of
your day-to-day lessons. Now keep in mind that QAR doesn’t
just apply to Reading
language arts lessons, but in social studies, science and
math as well.
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