Topic: QAR Reading Strategy

4th Grade

Enduring Understandings:
There are different types of questions that I can ask when reading; sometimes the answers to
questions are not directly answered in the text, or I may have to search to find the answer.
Essential Questions:
What are the four types of questions in QAR? How do I answer each type of question?
Primary Content Objectives:
Students will know:
Right There
Search and Find
Author and Me
On My Own
Students will be able to do:
Identify Right There, Search and Find, Author and Me, and On My Own
questions.
Ask and answer Right There, Search and Find, Author and Me, and On My Own
questions.
Related state or national standards:
Virginia SOL 4.6
The student will read and demonstrate comprehension of nonfiction texts.
a) Use text structures, such as type, headings, and graphics, to predict and categorize information in both
print and digital texts.
b) Formulate questions that might be answered in the selection.
c) Explain the authors purpose.
f) Draw conclusions and make simple inferences using textual information as support.
g) Distinguish between cause and effect.
i) Use prior knowledge and build additional background knowledge as context for new learning.
j) Identify new information gained from reading.
k) Use reading strategies throughout the reading process to monitor comprehension.

Common Core
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4.10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including
stories, dramas, and poetry, in the grades 45 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding
as needed at the high end of the range.
Assessment:
In the introduction, during reading, and as students are working, I will be actively making mental
notes as to what the students can do well without more support, and what might be causing the
students to struggle. I will write down those notes quickly after the lesson.

Topic: QAR Reading Strategy

4th Grade

Pre-Assessment & Formative Assessment: The students are asking questions that are put on Postit Notes, and afterwards I ask the students what type of question that is so we can put it on the
visual.
Students will be working on a worksheet after this activity; the first five questions they are going
to work on with a partner, and the last five questions they are going to do on their own. I will use
these worksheets in order to gage what the students understand about the strategy and how they
use the strategy with the sentences.
Materials and Resources:
Visual: The visual has the Right There and Search and Find question at the top, under a title
that says, I can find in the book and the Author and Me and In My Head questions at the
bottom under I have to think about this questions.
Book: If I Were President by Catherine Steir
Key Vocabulary and Definitions:
QAR is a reading comprehension strategy that helps me understand what I read.
Right There answers can be found directly in the text.
Search and Find answers are spread throughout the text.
Author and Me answers are inferences; what we think the author would say.
On My Own answers are based upon what we already know.
Lesson Procedures:
1. Introduction and goal orientation:
a. When I say, I am you say ready-I am.. (ready) I am.. (ready). Great, I see
that everyone is not only saying they are ready but showing me that they are
ready by looking at me and using their listening ears.
b. Today we are going to learn about a way that we can make sure we are
understanding what we are reading. What we learn today is also going to help us
answer questions about what we read.
c. What we are going to learn is called QAR. The letters QAR is a short way of
saying Question Answer Relationship. See how they took the first letter of each of
these words and put them together to make a new word?
d. What are we going to learn? (I point to QAR as a cue.)
e. What does it stand for? (I point to the words written out as a cue.)
2. Connecting to prior knowledge and experiences:
a. I know that sometimes when we read something and we ask questions in class, it
may be hard for us to find the answer. Yesterday we talked about how sometimes
answers to questions are not answered right in the book or passage, and today we
are going to talk about what kind of questions these may be, and where we can
find the answer.
b. There are four types of questions.

Topic: QAR Reading Strategy

4th Grade

i. Right There questions can be found in one place right in the book or
reading. Quick check: What does Right There mean?
ii. Search and Find questions can be found in the text, but the answer may
be spread out across many different places. Quick check: What does
Search and Find mean?
iii. Model: Lets practice finding these types of questions. Read these two
sentences out loud with me: Yesterday I went to the store with my mother
to buy food for dinner. We got chicken, rice, gravy, and broccoli.
1. Where did the mother go to buy food for dinner?
2. What did the family have for dinner?
iv. Author & Me questions are a little bit trickier. These questions cannot
be found right in the reading, and we have to think about what we know
and then make a prediction or inference about the answer. Quick check:
What does Author & Me mean?
v. In My Head questions are questions that we have to think of the answer
entirely on our own. Sometimes these are easy to answer, because they ask
us about ourselves, and sometimes they are hard to answer, because we
really have to think about the answer. Quick check: What does In My
Head mean?
vi. Model: Lets practice answering these types of questions. Read these 2
sentences out loud with me: Sometimes when it rains I like to sit on my
front porch with a blanket and read a good book. I have a front porch
swing that I can sit on, and I can listen to the calming sound of the rain.
1. Does the author like rainy days?
2. Do you like rainy days?
3. Tasks & Activities:
a. If you all look up here we have a drawing that is going to help us organize our
questions. The book we are going to read today is: If I Were President.
b. Before we even read, what questions do you all already have about this book?
Raise your hand when you are ready to share.
c. Students share questions. I am putting all of your questions on Post-It notes and I
am going to place them here because we dont know if these questions are going
to be answered directly in the book, do we? But as we read and after we read, we
can move these questions from In the Book to any of the other places that we
think the question may be answered.
d. We read the book together, pausing to answer questions if we find the answer
directly in the book. For the first few questions I am going to model a think-aloud
for the students.
e. After reading, we are going to look at the questions that are still unanswered.
What kind of questions do you think we have left? Raise your hand to tell me
where you think each question should go when you are ready. As we do this I am

Topic: QAR Reading Strategy

4th Grade

going to do a think aloud for the first few questions, then I am going to let the
students answer these questions, providing corrective feedback when necessary.
4. Closure:
a. Now that you all have learned about the different types of questions we can ask, I
want you to turn to the person beside you and say, Hey there neighbor! You are
going to work together to do the first five questions on this worksheet. You are
going to write down 2 things for each question: you are going to write down what
type of question this is, and you are going to write down the answer to the
question.
i. Remember, what are the four different types of questions that they could
be?
b. Now that everyone has answered the first five questions on the worksheet, I want
you to do the last five questions on your own.
Accommodations for individual differences:
The students are going to work with predetermined partners, and I have paired the students up in
a strategic way. I took comprehension assessment data and divided the class in half; then I paired
the top student on each list together, the second student on each list together, et cetera, in such a
way that the students are in mixed-ability pairs, but so that the students can help each other out.
One student gets overwhelmed with lengthy worksheets, so I modified that worksheet to only
have five questions on each side, and she got an additional page with a smaller version of the
visual from the board.
Behavioral and organizational strategies:
Having the students respond throughout the lesson will keep the students engaged and will also
allow me to see if the students are following the lesson well. When making the groups I
considered personalities and made sure that the student pairs are not prone to conflict. In
addition, the students know the classroom rules and expectations, and this lesson moves at a fast
pace so that there is little down-time for the students.

4th Grade

Topic: QAR Reading Strategy

Question Answer Relationship
Right There & Search and Find Questions

Yesterday I went to the store with my mother to buy food for dinner. We got chicken, rice, gravy,
and broccoli.
Where did the mother go to buy food for dinner?
What did the family have for dinner?
Author and Me & On My Own Questions
Sometimes when it rains I like to sit on my front porch with a blanket and read a good book. I
have a front porch swing that I can sit on, and I can listen to the calming sound of the rain.
Does the author like rainy days?
Do you like rainy days?
If I Were President After Reading Questions:
Remember, do five with your partner, then do five by yourself.
1. In the book, what is one thing that the kid says they will do when they are president?
2. Why does the kid want to be president?
3. What is one reason that the kid wants to be president when they grow up?
4. Have you ever thought that you wanted to be president?
5. When the president disagrees with a law, what can they do?
6. What would you do if you were president?
7. The president gives a speech to Congress every year. What is the name of this speech?
8. Who would help the kid make decisions if they were president?
9. How many times could the president be elected?
10. What mountain are the presidents heads carved into?