Wh-questions
Asking and answering wh-questions are essential skills, as they lay the foundation to participate in conversations, to demonstrate knowledge, to collect information, to create, and to help make sense of their surroundings and themselves. We ask and answer questions to be polite and build and maintain relationships. Appropriately asking and answering these questions require language skills such as:
- understanding the question word (e.g., The difference between “what” and “where”)
- understanding each vocabulary word of the question
- formulating appropriate syntax for a response
- understanding the social context of the situation
Believe it or not some questions are easier to ask/answer than others. “What” questions are the easiest to learn, followed by “Who”, then “Where”, followed by “When”, and finally “Why”; “Why” questions being the most difficult for children to learn and master.
Who?
This week we have been thinking about the question word, “who?” To encourage proper use of the question word, ‘'who?’' some of our classes have been speaking about their families, friends and classmates:
- Who is in your family? My brother, grandma and daddy are in my family.
- Who is the tallest person in our class? Jenny is the tallest person in our class.
- Who is your best friend? Ranbir is my best friend because he is so kind!
We also read a fun story "Who Done It?" by Olivier Tallec that made us observe, infer and think:
Ways to support your child at home:
- While reading simple storybooks with illustrations, ask your child questions like, “Who is this? What is he/she doing? Where is the dog going? When will he/she come back? Why is he/she leaving?” Practice these types of questions, as well as saying the answer. Remember, one question at a time.
- Ask questions about your child’s day at school using Wh-questions. “Who did you sit with at lunch? Where did the class go for music time? When did you play outside? What did you eat for lunch? Why did you bring home your books?
Parent volunteers support home languages
At Patana we are very lucky to have a great variety of cultures and languages represented in our community. At every opportunity we highlight the importance of your heritage and home language. In order to foster wellbeing and language development of our multilingual learners, I coordinate the HOLA (home language) program between secondary and FS students. However, this term we were pleased to welcome some parent volunteers who speak Mandarin, Thai and English. What a difference it has made! The students feel so happy and excited to see their adults; they feel safe and understood speaking their home languages. This opportunity also brings important information about a child, e.g. their interests, hobbies, favourite activities that they share in home language, which helps us build positive relationships with our students. If you would like to support FS with languages, please contact me at dakr@patana.ac.th.
You can have a look what FS2P have been up to this week:
Have an amazing weekend!
Miss Daria