21 Questions to Ask Your Child About a Book

• Why did you select this book?
• What makes you think this book is going to be interesting?
• What do you think the book is going to be about?
• Does this book remind you of anything else you’ve already read or seen?
• What kind of characters do you think will be in the book?

20 questions to ask about a book you’ve read

• Explain the title.
• What category or genre do you think it fits into?
• What do you think the author’s purpose was?
• Something you liked about it.
• Something you disliked about it.
• Describe the setting.
• Which character did you like most?
• Which character did you like least?

How to (politely) ask for books

1. Discuss your motives for desiring books with friends and family.
2. If you’ll be throwing a party, use books as your theme.
3. Ask someone, e.g. your mother, to spread the word for you.
4. Leave it off the invitation but spread the word as people RSVP.

Topic Ideas

1. Who are the key characters? Do one or more of the characters tell the story?
2. What style is it written in?
3. What do the characters do?
4. What is the book about?
5. What time period is it set in?
6. When was the book written?
7. Where does it take place?
8. What do you know about the author?

Choose a primary character and ask members to comment on him or her. Consider things like: Character traits, motivations, how he/she affects the story’s events and characters. Play a literary game. Use an “icebreaker” activity to loosen you up and get your discussion off to an enthusiastic start.

Plot

• How did the author begin the story?
• What is the main problem in the story?
• What challenges do the characters meet in the story?
• What choices did the characters have?
• How does the choices the characters make affect the other characters and the story?
• What do you think is the most important part of the book?

Below you’ll find four tips to help you write questions that accomplish these goals:

1. Ask Open-Ended Questions. Strong open-ended questions guide our thoughts without expecting specific answers.
2. Think about Community.
3. More Questions = More Participation.
4. Offer Incentive (Grade the Discussion)

8 Best Questions to Ask

• What is the first thing you notice about a person?
• What are some challenges you think the next generation will face?
• What three habits will improve your life?
• For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
• If you could have lunch with one person alive or dead, who would it be?

Here are the six types of questions Socrates posed:

• Clarifying concepts.
• Probing assumptions.
• Probing rationale, reasons and evidence.
• Questioning viewpoints and perspectives.
• Probing implications and consequences.
• Questioning the question.

Let’s start with everyday types of questions people ask, and the answers they’re likely to elicit.

• Closed questions (aka the ‘Polar’ question)
• Open questions.
• Probing questions.
• Leading questions.
• Loaded questions.
• Funnel questions.
• Recall and process questions.
• Rhetorical questions.

Level Three questions go beyond the text, yet must show an understanding of the ideas in the text. These questions typically require reasoning, complexity, and/or planning. If it’s a level three question, you explain/justify your thinking and provide supporting evidence for reasoning or conclusions you make.

Level 1 (the lowest level) requires one to gather information. Level 2 (the middle level) requires one to process the information. Level 3 (the highest level) requires one to apply the information. Prove your answer.

Level 4 questions require students to provide support or evidence for their elaborations. They might ask students to identify sources that support their elaborations. When answering Level 4 questions, students might even find errors in premises, rules, or generalizations they previously thought to be true.

The Levels of Questions strategy helps students comprehend and interpret a text by requiring them to answer three types of questions about it: factual, inferential, and universal.

Strategies for enhancing higher order thinking

1. Take the mystery away.
2. Teach the concept of concepts.
3. Name key concepts.
4. Categorize concepts.
5. Tell and show.
6. Move from concrete to abstract and back.
7. Teach steps for learning concepts.
8. Go from basic to sophisticated.