THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEACHERS' QUESTIONS AND STUDENTS' RESPONSES DURING A DIRECTED READING ACTIVITY AND A DIRECTED READING-THINKING ACTIVITY

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between teachers' questions and students' responses during basal reading lessons using two different group instructional procedures, the Directed Reading Activity (DRA) and the Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DR-TA).; Nine teachers taught two lessons each: one DRA lesson and one DR-TA lesson. One hundred and forty-four third grade students participated in the study. The third grade population was stratified by sex and instructional reading level and randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups. Each group consisted of four boys and four girls at the same instructional reading level, classified as reading at, above, or below grade level by their classroom teachers.; Each of the 18 lessons was observed and tape-recorded by the researcher in the fall of 1982. Teachers' questions and students' responses were tallied according to the categories of the Ohio Scales. The data were analyzed using the chi-square statistic, and significance was set at p < .01 for all data.; Results indicated that there is a statistically significant relationship between the kinds of questions asked by teachers and the level of thinking represented by third grade students' responses. When teachers asked factual kinds of questions, they received significantly more students' responses representing noncritical thinking. When teachers asked interpreting kinds of questions, they received significantly more students' responses representing critical thinking.; The DRA and the DR-TA are two different reading instructional procedures which can be used with groups of students during basal reader lessons. Results of this study found that the DR-TA was superior to the DRA in developing students' critical reading-thinking skills. These findings were consistent whether students were instructionally reading at, above, or below third grade level.