Document B: Example questions for listening to pupils in key stages 2 and 3

Page Content

Reading

Do you enjoy reading?
Does your school have the sorts of books that you like to read? If not, what types of texts would you like more of? Do you visit the school library?
How do you find out about new books or authors that you might want to read?
What is your favourite book that you have read in school this year? Do your teachers ever recommend books to you that they think you might enjoy?
What advice does your teacher give you about your reading?
Do adults read to you in school? Do you enjoy it?
Do you take books home? What do you read at home? How often do you read at home?
Did you choose this book?
Did you know anything about it before you started reading it?
Can you explain how fiction and non-fiction texts are different?

Fiction text

Do you have a favourite character/part of the book? Why do you like this character/part of the book?
What does the author mean by the phrase…?
Which words do you think were the most effective to describe x? Why do you think the author chose these? How do you think the author wants us to feel at this point in the book?
Do you think x could really happen?
How else do authors make us think about characters in a particular way?
Which reading skills might you need to use to understand a character’s mood or behaviour?
Can you explain what kind of person x is?

When pupils are reading aloud, you might ask:

Which strategies do you use if you don’t know a word or you lose track of what is happening in the story when you read?
Have you come across this word before? Do you know what the word means or can you work out what it means in this sentence?
What other word could the author have used that means the same sort of thing?
Why did you change your voice when you read that part of the book?

Non-fiction text

Can you show me how to find…in this reference book?
Tell me how you search to find information. What are indexes, contents pages, glossaries and hyperlinks used for?
Why does this section have subheadings and captions?
If I ask you to skim this page, what am I asking you to do? Can you skim this page and tell me what it is about? How is skimming different to scanning?
Do you use the internet for research?
If you’re using the internet to find information to write about, how do you go about this? Do you make notes? Can you show me any examples of your notes? Do you believe everything you read in an information book or on the internet, when you are researching your topic?
Can you think of a time where you have had to summarise something you have read? How about synthesise?

When pupils are reading aloud, you might ask:

Which strategies do you use if you don’t know a word or you lose track of what is happening when you read an information book?
Have you come across this word before? Do you know what the word means or can you work out what it means in this sentence?
What other word could the author have used that means the same sort of thing?
How is reading a non-fiction text different to reading a fiction book?

Writing

Do you like writing?
What do you like writing about?
What do you do if you cannot spell a word?
What type of writing do you like best?
What do you find easy about writing?
What do you find difficult about writing?
Do you plan your writing? What techniques do you use to plan? What do you think about?
Do you redraft or edit your writing? Why do you do this?
How do you know which punctuation to use?
Tell me how you went about writing this story/recount/persuasive letter etc? Did you have any help with this?
Why do you need to understand the purpose of your writing?
Why is it important to know who will be reading your writing?
Can you tell me how you would set out a report/an explanation/a story etc?
What helps you to be successful when you write?
Do you ever get to choose what you write about or what type of text you write?
Do you use tablets or laptops to write?