What happens when teachers of young students explicitly teach their students how to ask questions? Could change occur during a three-week summer enrichment camp?
These are the questions that Dr. Cora Causey at the University of Alabama Birmingham and Dr. Amelia Spencer at Birmingham Southern University were hoping to answer in a research study they recently conducted with early learners in Birmingham, Alabama.
In particular, Dr. Causey and Dr. Spencer were interested in evaluating how the use of the QFT as an instructional strategy would impact students’ progress in two areas: 1) question asking (quantity and quality) and 2) oral language skills, such as phonemic awareness and story retelling.
They chose QFT as the central focus for the study because, as they explained it, it’s a strategy that “can be tailored to address all students’ unique needs, developmental levels, and diverse backgrounds, fostering a safe environment for curiosity and questioning within a structured learning environment.”
A summer enrichment program in Birmingham, Alabama
The study took place during a three week, summer enrichment program called Use Your Noodle designed by Dr. Causey and Dr. Spencer for local Birmingham students — 89% of whom were enrolled in low-performing schools — to “develop a love for learning through asking questions and solving problems using literacy, numeracy, and play.” The program’s academic focus was science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) education through literacy instruction, using play and inquiry-based pedagogy.
First, Dr. Causey and Dr. Spencer led the camp staff (which included four teachers, two student teachers, and one theater and arts educator) in a training on the QFT. The teachers participated in a memorable QFT process themselves, before Dr. Causey and Dr. Spencer explained that it was a tool they would be using nearly daily during the camp to facilitate student-led inquiry.
After asking, categorizing, and prioritizing their own questions about a Banksy street painting, the teachers were hooked and ready to try it with students. “I think we were a bit smitten at that point of the process,” said Sarah Leffel, who went on to use it with her own students during the rest of the school year as well.
Then, the research process commenced. On the first day of camp, Dr. Causey and Dr. Spencer assessed a group of 40 students, between the ages of 4 and 10, on their questioning skills. They looked at whether students could ask a question when prompted, and which types of questions they asked: basic information vs. wonderment. Using the Oral Language Acquisition Inventory (OLAI), they also assessed students’ pre-literacy oral language skills, such as phonemic awareness — the ability to recognize and think about individual sounds in words— and story retelling. They gave students the same assessment on the last day of camp to see how they had progressed over the three weeks.
“Significant gains in phonemic awareness and oral story telling”
Dr. Causey and Dr. Spencer were surprised and pleased to discover that students involved in the research study not only “exhibited a substantial increase in the number and quality of questions posed, as evaluated by pre-post oral language assessment”, they also unexpectedly “demonstrated significant gains in phonemic awareness and oral story retelling.”
For Dr. Causey and Dr. Spencer, these were exciting results. A movement towards prioritizing research-backed literacy strategies called the “science of reading” is growing in Alabama right now. While questioning is important to the science of reading, Dr. Causey and Dr. Spencer report that within this movement, inquiry is sometimes pushed to the side because it is harder to measure than other, more traditional methods of teaching. Their study with the QFT potentially proves that inquiry-based instruction is not just a cherry on top, but itself an essential evidence-based strategy necessary to support the literacy development of young learners.
Dr. Causey and Dr. Spencer plan to run Use Your Noodle again next year, to give more young students the opportunity to learn the essential skill of question formulation, and employ it toward building literacy skills, STEAM knowledge, and their own curiosity for learning. The camp has had ripple effects on both the students and the teachers involved, and goes beyond those three weeks in the summer.
This research has recently been published in a scholarly journal, and the full study can be accessed here.
“I feel like I listen more to the students’ questions”
The four teachers who staffed the camp found that their teaching was profoundly changed by the experience, and have carried their use of the QFT into their classrooms all year round. For Tanishia Smith, “The biggest impact it had on me was just understanding how important questioning was. I know it’s important that students in early childhood are able to communicate and build on their oral language, but I don’t think I quite made the connection that asking questions leads to new learning.”
All four teachers reported that a “side effect” of this experience was just listening to their students more. Smith reflects, “Taking it back to the classroom, I feel like I listen more to the students’ questions and really try to think, ‘Okay, what’s going on in their brain right now?’ I’m a lot more intentional about really paying attention to the types of questions they’re asking.”
Similarly, Kristin Williams, who co-teaches with Leffel, says, “Before QFT, Sarah and I were really great at honoring what our students had to say, but I feel like after QFT, we really focus on that now. Nothing you say goes unnoticed. It allowed [us] to hone in on everything [the students] are saying, appreciate that it’s coming from somewhere, and figure out how [we] can honor that.”
Read on to hear insights and examples from the teachers as they adapted the QFT for early learners.