The four questions
These four kinds of question work over any picture book. You don’t have to use all four on every page — just keep the talk going.
Fill-in Finch — Completion
Leave a blank at the end of a sentence and let your child fill it in.
Try:
- “On this page, the … (let them finish the sentence).”
- “And then the character felt so … ?”
- “Look — a big, red … ?”
Open-ended Owl — Open-ended
Ask your child to tell you about the picture in their own words.
Try:
- “Tell me what’s happening on this page.”
- “What do you see here?”
- “What’s going on in this picture?”
Wh-Wren — Wh- question
Ask a what / where / who / why / how question about the page.
Try:
- “Where is the character going?”
- “Why do you think they did that?”
- “Who is this, and what are they doing?”
Distancing Deer — Distancing
Connect the page to your child’s own life.
Try:
- “Have you ever felt like that?”
- “When did we do something like this?”
- “Does this remind you of anything at home?”
For the grown-up
- PEER: Prompt your child, Evaluate their answer, Expand on it, then let them Repeat the expansion.
- Follow your child’s lead — if they want to talk about one page for a while, do.
- Recall: after the story, ask "what happened first? what happened next?"
- Read favourite books again and again — repetition is how the words stick.
- There are no wrong answers. Praise the trying, not the being-right.