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Question
generation—the purposeful posing and answering of questions about what
is read—serves the goal of reading comprehension instruction not only
of its own accord, but also in conjunction with multiple reading comprehension
strategies.
 The Role of Question Generation
in Reciprocal Teaching
In numerous
reading comprehension studies analyzed by the National Reading Panel,
question generation has played a large role in reciprocal teaching. Of
the four principal strategies (e.g., summarization, question generation,
clarification, and prediction) used in combination during reciprocal teaching,
question generation is the strategy most frequently incorporated. In addition
to 27 studies supporting the effectiveness of question generation in the
NRP research review, 11 of 30 studies cited in a comprehensive meta-analysis
on question generation were as a part reciprocal teaching (NRP, 2000;
Rosenshine and Meister, 1996).
Question
generation strategies, in addition to being a natural precursor to question
answering, is an excellent compliment to another proven strategy—comprehension
monitoring. Often referred to as self-regulation, comprehension monitoring
translates into metacognitive awareness and students' abilities to self-select
and employ questioning strategies on a situational basis. Students learn
to independently and actively select and use strategies that help them
better comprehend text material. Notably, some of the most favorable gains
in students' abilities to critique and improve the quality of their own
questions and those of other students have been found to occur in conjunction
with comprehension monitoring instruction. For more information on why
and how to assist students in learning to critique or measure the quality
of the operational questions they generate, read S3
Assessment Criteria for Operational Questions.
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