About this activity
Twelve questions split between two question words: where is the ball, where do you live, where did you go, where is the bathroom, where do you keep your coat; when is your birthday, when does school start, when do you eat lunch, when do you brush your teeth, when is bedtime. Where asks for a place and when asks for a time, and children confuse them for longer than adults expect.
How to use it in a session
Group by question word rather than alternating. Five where questions in a row establish what where is asking for; alternating means a child who does not know one will fail on both. Where questions can be answered by pointing, which makes them the easier of the two and the right place to start. Eight minutes covers the twelve.
What to listen for
Listen for a place answer to a time question or the reverse. When is your birthday answered with at my house is a question word confusion and is different from not knowing the answer. Watch the personal questions — where do you live, when is your birthday — which require retrieval rather than looking, and are harder than the ones about a visible object.
Carrying it home
Where and when questions happen constantly. Asking one at a time and waiting for the answer, rather than asking two together, is what gives a child the chance to sort out which is which.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- Kindergarten through third, for early wh-question work.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all twelve questions play with no account.
- Which question word should I teach first?
- Where, usually. It can be answered by pointing, which makes it concrete, and it comes earlier for most children than when.