International Ask a Question Day

March 14, 2010 at 6:55 AM | Posted in Language | 2 Comments
Tags: online speech therapy, questions, speech therapy

March 14th is International Ask a Question Day.  The goal of this day is to help people understand the benefits of asking more questions and how to ask better questions.
There are 12 main reasons to ask questions, they include:

1) to gather information
2) to maintain relationships
3) to learn and to teach
4) to build awareness
5) to think clearly, critically and strategically
6) to solve problems and to make decisions
7) to challenge assumptions
8) to set and accomplish goals
9) to clarify and confirm in listening sitautions
10)  to resolve conflicts
11) to engage in production conversations
12) to create and innovate new possibilities

To ask effective questions we need to practice our questioning skills.  Here are a few ideas that can help you work on your questioning skills.

Look at the 12 reasons to ask questions and pick one to work on each day or each week.  Then practicing asking questions in that category.  Try asking these questions to different people in different situations.  When you use these skills in different situations it helps you become more efficient, more adept at the skill in question.  You can also try to ask yourself these questions to help you practice.

Keep a daily journal of things that happen in your life and the world around you.  A good observer has many things to ask questions about as they are engaged and thinking critically about the world around them and things occurring in their daily lives.  Writing down these observations may spark a question you can ask someone else or research for yourself.

Remember that questioning is the way we learn new things.  We have all been around the three-year-old who constantly asks “why?”  They are not trying to frustrate anyone they are merely trying to learn more about their environment and the actions of the people around them.  This curiosity is a valuable tool that should be nurtured as it will help them  throughout their educational career.

Some children struggle with asking questions both in how to formulate the question and asking appropriate questions.  Children often ask questions that don’t give them the answer or information they were looking for which leaves them feeling frustrated.  Children may ask questions that do not fit in with the current conversation they may ask questions in a manner which confuses the listener so they are unsure of what information the child is trying to obtain.

We should also look at the flip side of this and mention answering questions.  Answering questions is also challenging to many children.  They may not understand what information the asker is looking for thus they do not appropriately answer the question.  They may answer the first part of the question but not second part, etc.

Speech therapy can help children learn how ask meaningful, appropriate questions that get them the information the want or need.  a child who is skilled at asking questions is more likely to ask questions when they are confused or when they missed some information or to check to ensure they understood what had been said.  Speech therapy also helps children learn how to listen to the question so they are able to effectively answer the posed question.  This is a skill children need to succeed in school as children are graded on their ability to answer questions on written and oral examinations.

If you have concerns about your child’s ability to ask or answer questions effectively or appropriately please contact a local speech pathologist or one of our speech pathologists at 1-877-480-7913 or through our website by clicking on the link below:

Online Speech Therapy provided by Independent Speech ~ www.independentspeech.com