Improving Comprehension with Questioning the Author: A Fresh and Expanded View of a Powerful Approach

In this fully revised and expanded edition of a classic, Isabel L Beck and Margaret G. McKeown share their new findings on Questioning the Author, the approach that galvanized the research field to look at comprehension instruction in a new way. What’s the big idea? What is the author telling us now? That’s what the author says, but what does the author mean? By using queries such as these during reading, at strategic points in a text, students learn how to build meaning and consider and converse with an author’s ideas. These queries help focus discussions on important understandings. They also embolden struggling readers to work through the ideas in a text rather than skim over them. The book includes how-to’s on planning and orchestrating the Questioning the Author approach as well as a practical trouble-shooting guide based on classroom transcripts of 25 common challenges to discussion. For use with Grades 3–8.