Think Thick!

Hello!

You may find this post really helpful if you take Reading/Reading Comprehension in your classes. Well, it is actually applicable to all teachers and across subjects but through reading we can make the most out of it.

Asking questions not just makes our class interactive but also helps our children think. Reasoning skills play an important role in our teaching world, not just for students but also for us teachers.  

Let's see how we can help children think and reason better. One of the ways is by asking them to answer and make THIN and THICK QUESTIONS.

Beginning with the THIN QUESTIONS..

Examples of thin questions:

• How many?
• Who?
• What?
• Where?
• When?

Answers to THIN QUESTIONS can be found right in the text. They are:

• Easier to answer
• Yes or No Questions
• Usually only one answer

While reading story books or any text encourage children to find answers to such questions and also make THIN questions. Play a game within your group where kids make their own questions and everybody takes turns to answer. 

Examples of thick questions:

• Why?
• How come?
• What if..?
• How did?
• What does the author mean?
• What would happen?
• What might..?
• I wonder...?

Answers to THICK QUESTIONS cannot be found right in the text. Kids need to put on their THINKING CAPS!!

• Many answers to same question
• Need to use evidence from the text
• Use background knowledge
• Difficult to find directly in the text

Play the same game as mentioned above for helping kids to answer and make THICK questions. 

By doing an activity on 'Thick and Thin Questions', kids not just learn how to find clues for the answers but they also learn to make questions. Thinking and reasoning skills are further deepened.

I hope you find this activity useful. Keep reading for further ideas!! :)

Happy to receive comments!!