What are Good Open-Ended Questions to Ask Children?

Question

Answer

Open-ended questions ask children to:

• Predict
• Reconstruct an experience
• Imagine
• Make comparisons
• Solve problems
• Generalize
• Reason
• Evaluate
• Propose alternatives
• Make decisions

Here are some examples of open-ended questions to ask children.

• Make a prediction.
  • What do you think would happen, if we ran out of snacks today?
• Reconstruct an experience that they had.
  • Remember when we went to the farm, what are some of the things that we saw? What are some of the things that we did?
• Have them imagine.
  • Imagine if you were king of the world, what would you be in charge of? Or what would you do differently?
• Make comparisons.
  • Did you like today's snack better or yesterday's snack?
  • What do you think would be better to add to the dramatic play center?
• Solve problems with the questioning that you are asking.
  • I have used problem-solving as a way to generate conversations with groups of children, such as in a class government situation. With preschool-aged children, you might be sitting at meeting or circle time and have an issue to discuss.  It could be that the caps on the markers keep being left off and our markers are drying out. Bring that problem to the children. Our markers are drying out because we are not getting the caps back on. How do we fix that problem? How do we make sure that we get the caps back on the markers? Have them help solve that problem. They are more likely to own it and feel like they have helped solve something real because they have. They are more likely to follow through when they have had a hand in solving that problem. Practice and allow children to solve some problems, even if it is not the quickest way to solve the issue. Not only is great cognitively, but it is also great for their conversation and a good verbal environment.
• Make generalizations.
  • Take what they know about a book that they read and generalize the characters in another situation. Use what they know about the visit to the farm to think about what is going to happen when they go to the zoo.
• Apply reasoning.
  • My favorite is on a rainy day when you are leaving and all the worms are on the sidewalk, ask the children, "Why do you think all these worms are on the sidewalk? They weren't here earlier and now it has rained and here they are?" Have the children try to think of a reason for that.
• Make evaluations.
  • This is great with food items. If we have had something new for a meal, I would ask the children to do an evaluation or critique of the food. We could provide that to our cook to say, "Yeah, we would love to have this again,” or, “Maybe do not fix this one so often."
• Propose alternatives.
  • What do you think we should do instead?
  • What do you think we could do?
• Make decisions about things.
  • What would you like to do about this?
  • Make sure it is open-ended.

This Ask the Expert is an edited excerpt from the course, Positive Verbal Strategies for Connecting with Children, presented by Amber Tankersley, PhD.