A child can read a passage aloud without stumbling and still be unable to say what it was about. Decoding and understanding are separate skills, and the second one grows through questions, from the simplest (“who? where?”) to the subtle (“what does the text hint at without saying it?”).
The questions on this wheel are not tied to any particular text: they work with a picture book, a novel, a short story and, for most of them, a news article. The “Early readers” variant practises retrieval and retelling; the “Confident readers” variant moves on to inference, point of view and the author’s purpose. Each question explains what a good answer should include.
How to use it
- After reading, spin the wheel: the question it lands on is the one the pupil or group answers.
- Read the description aloud: it explains what form the answer should take.
- Always ask for evidence from the text: a quoted sentence or a line number.
- In a reading circle, spin once per pupil so each one prepares a question while the others reread.
All the options
- Who is the main character?
- Name the main character and explain how you know: they appear most often and the story follows what they do.
- Where is it set?
- Find two words in the text that describe the setting. If the setting changes, list the places in the order they appear.
- When does it happen?
- Look for time clues: time of day, season, period. An object or a way of travelling can also tell you when the story takes place.
- The character’s problem
- What problem does the main character have to solve? Answer in one sentence starting with “They have to… because…”.
- Retell in three sentences
- One sentence for the beginning, one for the middle, one for the end. No details: only what moves the story forward.
- A new word
- Choose a word you did not know. Guess its meaning from the sentence around it, then check in a dictionary.
- How does someone feel?
- Choose a passage and say how one character feels. Point to the word, action or line of dialogue that shows it.
- What happens next?
- Predict what comes next in two sentences. Your idea must fit what we know about the characters and how they behave.
- True or false?
- Make up a statement about the text, true or false. The others answer and must point to the line that proves it.
- My favourite part
- Read your favourite passage aloud and explain in one sentence why: what it made you feel or picture.
Frequently asked questions
What are the main types of reading comprehension questions?
Teachers usually distinguish literal questions, whose answer is stated in the text, inferential questions, which require working something out from clues, and evaluative questions, which ask for a reasoned opinion. A good session mixes all three.
How do you teach inference?
Start with short texts where a piece of information is deliberately left out (“She shook her umbrella as she came in”: it was raining). Keep asking “how do you know?” and have pupils underline the words that act as clues.
What can I do if my child reads well but does not understand?
Pause during reading and ask them to retell what just happened in their own words. Encourage them to picture the scene like a film and describe what they see. If the text is long, break it into shorter chunks.
How many questions should I ask after reading?
Three or four well-chosen questions beat a worksheet of fifteen. Open with a literal question to build confidence, then follow with at least one inference question.