Kindergarten Sample Questions/Prompts

*For each of the questions below, ask students to support their answer with evidence from the text.

Literature Standards

RL2: With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details.

  • Have children do a dramatic retelling of the story.
  • Have children retell the story______. Beginning with______and ending with______.
  • Monitor children’s ability to recount the details and sequence of events.
  • What has happened in the story ______so far?

•What is (character) doing at this point in the story?

•What is (character) doing on these pages?

•What does (character) do now?

•What are these pages mostly about?

•What words on page ____ give a main idea of the (text)?

•Let’s look at the pictures, what do you think the main idea is?

•Using the illustrations in the big book- Ask students to retell the selection citing key details.

•Point to the picture(s) in order and retell the main event(s).

•Retell in your own words the most important events.

•What are the main events of the story in order?

•Retell the important story events including the beginning, middle, and end.

•Retell what has happened in the story so far.

  • What happens in this (story, poem, etc.)?
  • What key details do you remember?

RL3: With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.

•Whatelse do you learn about the character ______on these pages?

•How does the character feel about______in the story?

•How do the characters change when______happens in the story?

•Why does the character feel ______when______?

•What do the pictures show about ______?

•Where does ______live and how can you tell?

•How are ______and ______actions the same and how are they different?

•Who are the characters in this ______?

•Look at the picture. How do you think _____ feels? How can you tell?

•What do the pictures show ______doing?

•How can you tell that _____ is important to _____?

•Who is speaking?

•Why is ______an important part of the story?

•What happens at the end of the story?

•How does ______feel in this part of the story? How can you tell?

•Identify characters, settings, and major events of the story.

•What happens after ______(event)?

•Who is the story about?

•Where does it take place?

•What import events happened on these pages?

•Where are/is the (character/characters) now?

•On page ______what do you see?

•Who are the main characters?

•Where does the story take place?

•What are the major events?

•What is (character) doing?

•What ______do you see in the pictures?

•How does the character act? What does this tell you about the character?

•How was _____ different from all the others? What did _____ do?

•Where did the character go? Where did the character go next? Where did the character go next? Why did the character go to all of these places?

•Where do you think this story takes place? Why do you think that?

•What are some of the words they used to describe _____?

•How does the character react to…? How does everyone else react?

•What kind of character do you think _____ is? How do you know?

•Who came into the _____?

•If someone nodded, did the person mean “yes” or “no”?

•How does the character feel about the _____?

•What clues are in the story about why…?

•Who is this story about? How do you know?

•What do you learn about the character(s) on this page?

•What does the character want to do?

•Where is the character now?

•What is the character trying to do?

•The character has left…where did he go?

•How can you tell the character is…?

•What does the character see?

•What words does ______( character) use to tell ______( character) ______?

•Where does the story take place?

•A setting for a story tells us ______.

•Why did ______( character) tell ______( character) ______?

•What has happened so far? What happened at the beginning of the story?

•What happened after that?

•Who is the main character(s) of this story?

•What is the setting of the story?

•What are the major events?

•What are the people and animals in a story called?

•What is the place where a story happens called?

RL4: Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.

  • What do you think ______means?
  • Look carefully at the illustration. How does the illustration help us understand what ______means?
  • How do the words help you picture what is happening on this page?
  • What words on these pages tell about…?
  • What do the words say about _____ on this page?

•If you were in a ______why would you want to go inside ( outside)?

•What are some things you can do to make sure ______?

•If something is ______is it likely you can do it?

•What might someone see in a ______?

•What might you see if you went for a walk in ______?

•The words say ______are ______, what does ______mean?

•Have students work with a partner to determine the meaning of an unknown word by finding clues in the text.

•What should you do when you hear or see a word you don’t know?

•Does the word _____ sound like any other words that you know?

•What is another way we use the word______?

•What does the word ___ mean in the sentence/text? How do you know?

•How does -ed/re-/-s give us a clue to the meaning of the word____? (typed, retype, types)

•What categories would you place these objects in?

•What is the opposite of the word ____?

•What are examples of things that are_____?

•What is the difference between ___ and ___? (Follow-Up: Why? Give me an example/Show me.)

RL5: Recognize common types of texts (e.g. storybooks, poems, fantasy, and realistic text).

  • How can you tell this is a poem?
  • When a story ends with a lesson? What kind of story is it? (Fables)
  • What clues tell you this is an informational text?
  • An informational text gives facts. How do you know this text is nonfiction?
  • What lesson does the fable teach us?
  • How do you know when you are reading or hearing a fairy tale or fable?
  • What is similar/different about these two texts?
  • Do you think this book is an informational book or a story book? Tell why.
  • When I come to a period at the end of a sentence, I pause before I go on reading. (read several sentences without stopping) Why is it hard to understand what I just read?
  • How do you know this text is nonfiction or about real things?
  • What do the title and the first page tell you about the article?
  • Even though this book is fantasy, there are things about it that are realistic, or that could happen in real life. What parts of the story make it a fantasy? What parts are realistic?
  • What information does the caption tell about the picture?
  • What does the caption say about _____?
  • How do you know this is a poem?
  • How are the poems the same? How are the poems different?
  • What do you know about informational text?
  • What makes you think this is an informational text?
  • How might ______act differently if this were a fantasy story?
  • Do you think this is something a real ______might do?
  • What evidence do you see that this story is (fiction, fantasy, poem, etc.)
  • How can you tell that this story is not (fiction, fantasy, poem, etc.)
  • What kind of fiction story do you think this is? How can you tell?
  • Is this a story or a poem? How do you know?
  • What clues does this page give you that this is a (story, poem, letter, etc.)
  • Does this [book] give information?

RL6: With prompting and support, name the author and illustrator of a story and define the role of each in telling the story.

  • What does an author do?
  • What does an illustrator do?
  • Who is the author of this story?
  • Who is the illustrator of this story?
  • Ask a volunteer to point to the author’s name and the illustrator’s name.
  • What did the author do to make this book?
  • What did the illustrator do to make this book?
  • What did (author) do to make this book?
  • What did (illustrator) do to make this book?

•Who is the author of the story?

•Who is the illustrator of the story?

•______is the author/illustrator, what does that mean he/she did?

  • What does an author do?

What does an illustrator do?

RL7: With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear (e.g. what moment in a story an illustration depicts).

  • Whatdoes the picture show______?
  • How do the pictures and words in ______let us know that_____ is feeling ______?
  • What do the pictures tell about ______?
  • How do the words in the illustrations ______help you understand the selection more?
  • What does the picture show?
  • What are _____ and _____ doing in the picture? Do the words in text match the picture?
  • What clues in the picture and the words tell about _____?
  • What are the people in the picture doing?

•Look at the pictures. What clues tell you ______?

•Look at the picture and tell why you think ______?

•How do the illustrations help to make the authors story ______(feeling)?

•Talk about what the pictures show about the events in the story.

•How do the words and pictures together show ______?

•What does the picture show?

•How does the illustrator show…?

•What parts of the picture help you know that…?

•What does the _____ look like in this picture?

•How do the pictures of the _____ changed since the beginning of the story?

•How does the (sky) change in the pictures as the characters move from place to place?

•How can you tell the characters are in the _____ now?

•How does the illustrator show the night turning to day? What words on these pages tell about the day coming?

•What do the words and the pictures tell us about ______?

•Do the words or the pictures tell about ______?

•What do the pictures show us about ______?

•What in the picture help you to know ______?

•How do the pictures help you understand the words the author uses to describe ______?

•How do the words and pictures work together to help you understand ______?

•Which moment in the story does this illustration show?

RL9: With prompting and support, compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories.

•How are these books the same?

•How are these books different?

•Create a list of words to describe the characters in the two selections.

•How are the two characters alike/different?

•How do the characters in both stories change?

•Does that remind you of any characters we have read about in other stories?

•How do the feelings of the character(s) change by the end of the story?

•Does this story remind you of any other stories you have read?

  • Discuss the ways both stories show ______can happen when ______?
  • In both books ( stories) we learned about ______. What was the same about the two stories? What was different?
  • This week we read two stories about ______. Compare how the characters’ experiences were similar and how they were different.
  • After reading two versions of the same ___explain how their adventures and experiences are similar and different.
  • How are the adventures of ___ and ___ similar? Different?
  • Does this story/poem remind you of any other stories or poems we have read?

Reading Informational Text Standards:

*For each of the questions below, ask students to support their answer with evidence from the text.

RI 2: With prompting and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.

•What kind of information does the chart give?

•Retell the selection by looking at the pictures for support.

•What are you learning about ______from reading this book?

•What ______do the picture and text tell about?

•What facts did you learn about ______?

•How are all the ______alike?

•How are the ____ different?

•What did the selection tell you about what you would see at ______?

•What do the words say about _____?

•How are these ______being used?

•What does the text tell us about ______?

•What does the title and picture on the first page tell you the article will be about?

•What is the magazine article mostly about?

•What have you learned so far about ______?

•What is this book mostly about?

•What do the authors tell us about on these pages?

•What are the most important ideas on these pages?

•What are these pages about?

•Why did the author write this informational text?

•What does the big book tell us about?

•Why do you think the author wrote this book?

•What do you think the author wants readers to know?

•What details do these pages tell about the main idea?

  • What is the main topic of the text? How do you know?
  • What are the key details that help us understand ____?

RI 3: With prompting and support, describe the connection between two individuals, events ideas, or pieces of information in a text.

*For each of the questions below, ask students to support their answer with evidence from the text.

•What do the words say? How do the pictures show this idea?

•Look at the pictures – Who do you think might be saying ………?

•We have seen ______do ______, what might ______do next?

•Where does ______do ______? How do the pictures help you know that?

•Why do you think the author chose to show us ______?

•Why do you think the author chose to show us ______and then ______?

•How can you tell that this book is an informational book?

•Look at the pictures on page ______. How are ______useful?

•What are ______doing in the pictures? What does the author say about ______?

•On these pages a ______is using a ______. Why do you think ______was invented?

•What is the same in all the pictures?

•How is touch and taste different?

•How are your senses of hearing and smell different?

•How are the senses all alike?

•How are the ______and the ______moving in the same way?

•How does the new information add to your knowledge of ______?

•What do the illustrations show ______doing in ______?

•Which words on page ______are about ______?

•How are these two selections the same? How are they different?

•After reading the selection- What is this selection about?

•Look at the pictures- what ______do you see?

•The author says ______looks like ______. Why do you think the author said that?

•Point to the ______doing ______. Why might the ______be doing that?

•How do the words” ______” help you imagine the scene the author is describing?

•How do the words and pictures work together?

•Use the pictures and the text to answer the following: How have the ______changed?

•What happens to ______at the end of the selection?

•What does ______tell ______about ______?

•How does the author use these pages to help us remember information in the book?

•What do the pictures on these pages show? Reread the text pointing to the appropriate pictures.

•What do the words and pictures on these pages explain?

•What does ______do after ______happens in the selection?

•Do the pictures on page ______help us to understand the text?

•Point to each ______as you name it. What is different about each ______?

•What do the words and pictures tell us about what is important in ______?

•Does the Big Book give us information about something? What helps us learn new information?

•Now read aloud pages ______. Remind the children the words give information about the photos.

•How are ____ and ____ connected in this text?

•Describe how ___ and ___ are related.

RI 4: With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.

*For each of the questions below, ask students to support their answer with evidence from the text.

•What could I do if I did not understand what the word _____ means?

•What words on page _____ describe…?

•How are these two words similar? How are they different?

•Explain to children what a glossary is. Then read the definition of ____. What does this word mean?

•How do the words and pictures show …?

•Have students work with a partner to determine the meaning of an unknown word by finding clues in the text.

•What should you do when you hear or see a word you don’t know?

•Does the word _____ sound like any other words that you know?

•What is another way we use the word______?

•What does the word ___ mean in the sentence/text? How do you know?

•How does -ed/re-/-s give us a clue to the meaning of the word____? (typed, retype, types)

•What categories would you place these objects in?