Use the Who, What, Where, When, Why and How set of questions to unearth your student's understanding.
Its a powerful framework that enables you to easily create instant free reading comprehension tests whenever you need them.
Use each word as a prompt to an endless number of possible questions.
It so simple, you can literally stand at the board and start creating.
Ask yourself, what questions, that start with each key word, are possible? If you create two questions for each key question, then you have a twelve question test.
If you create five questions for each key question, then you have a thirty question test.
Remember questions that are open-ended (have many possible answers) require the most thinking from your students.
The questions below are examples of what can be created.
I have used "The Three Little Pigs" as the example story because it is universally known.
Of course, the questions can be used successfully on a much more complex story.
Who? Who are the main characters in the story? Who left home? Who built the house of straw? Who built the house of sticks? Who built the house of bricks? Who let his two brothers live with him? Who were the Three Little Pigs afraid of? Who would be worried about the Three Little Pigs? Who builds our houses? What? What was the first house built of? What was the second house built of? What was the third house built of? What did the Wolf want? What did the Three Little Pigs want? What did the Three Little Pig's mother want? What did the Three Little Pig's neighbors think of what was happening? What else could the Three Little Pigs have done to protect themselves? What were The Three Little Pigs thinking when the Wolf was at the door? What would you have done if you were one of the pigs? What would you do if you were walking past a house and saw the Big Bad Wolf trying to blow it down? What would you build your house out of (if you were able to build a house)? What did the Wolf say each time he was about to blow a house down? What would have happened if the Third Little Pig hadn't finished his brick house before the Wolf arrived? What are our houses made of? Where? Where is the story of The Three Little Pigs set? Where was the Three Little Pigs mother when all of this was happening? Where were the police when all of this was happening? Where did the Three Little Pigs build their houses? Where would you build a house? Where did the Big Bad Wolf come from? Where did the Three Little Pigs live before they built their houses? When? When did all of this take place? When did the Three Little Pigs leave home? When did the Big Bad Wolf arrive? When did the First Little Pig move in with the Second Little Pig? When did the Second Little Pig move in with the Third Little Pig? When will you be old enough to build a house? Why? Why did the Three Little Pigs leave home? Why did they each build there own house instead of one together.
Why did the Big Bad Wolf choose the Three Little Pigs to pick on? Why did the house of straw fall down? Why did the house of sticks fall down? Why did the house of bricks stay standing? Why did the Three Little Pigs stay in their houses instead of running away? How? How do you think the Three Little Pigs learnt to build houses? How did the Three Little Pigs get rid of the Big Bad Wolf? How many different endings to this story have you heard of? How else could it end? How would you like it to end? How would you get rid of a Wolf at the door? How could you change the story to make it have a sad ending? How is this story similar to Cinderella? How is this story different from Cinderella? How possible is it for a pig to really build a house? How possible is it for a wolf to really blow a house down? That's more than fifty questions I can choose from.
You can use the same formula to create your own free reading comprehension tests.