Reading for Intermediate and Advanced Learners, Spring, 2011

Question-Answer Relationships
The QAR strategy is used to understand and analyze questions. There are four basic categories of questions that student must understand in order to give a clear answer. The first type is “Right There” questions; the answers to these questions are directly stated in the text that is being read. The second type is “Putting it Together” questions; the answers to these questions are found by putting together statements throughout the text in order to arrive at a complete thought. The third type of question is “Author-and-Me.” This question is answered by using the student’s background knowledge as well as the text. The final type of question is “On My Own.” These questions are answered solely from the student’s background knowledge. The students should be taught the four types of questions and given opportunity to practice these questions independently in order to internalize this strategy in their reading.

PLEASE Strategy
The PLEASE strategy is a method of organizing a paragraph in the pre-writing stages. P reminds the students to pick a topic, audience, and a format. This helps students to narrow their focus, and not to become overwhelmed. L tells students to list their ideas about the topic; it encourages them to activate their knowledge concerning their topic. E is encouraging students to evaluate their list in order to prioritize the information that they have. It helps them to create an order that will make the most sense while they are writing as well as for the reader. A is the beginning of the writing process and reminds the students that they must activate their paragraph with a clear topic sentence. S tells the students that they must supply supporting sentences that support their topic sentence. E is the final step where students end with a concluding sentence and evaluate their work. Because of the structure of this paragraph writing strategies, students are able to be successful when writing paragraphs surrounding a topic.