Seven Questions to Ask Instead of Giving the Answer

Answering a kid's question is satisfying for the adult and often the end of the thinking for the kid. Asking a question back keeps the thinking alive, but only if the question is a genuine one. Here are seven that reliably move a conversation forward, and the one habit that makes all of them fail.

The Seven

Notice that none of them are quizzes. Each one asks for something the kid has that you do not: their expectation, their reasoning, their proposed test. That is what makes them feel like collaboration rather than an oral exam.

The Habit That Ruins It

If you already know the answer you want and you are asking questions to steer a kid toward it, they will notice, usually within two questions. What they learn is that the questions are a guessing game with a right answer you are withholding, and the honest response to that game is to stop guessing and wait.

The fix is to ask questions you actually do not know the answer to. What did you expect instead is always genuine, because you cannot know what someone else expected. What is the smallest change we could test is genuine, because there are several good answers and the kid may pick a better one than you had.

When to Just Answer

Questions back are a tool, not a policy. Sometimes a kid wants a fact, and the useful thing is to hand it over. Safety questions get direct answers immediately, always. So do questions where the missing fact is a dead end rather than a path, like the name of a chemical or the boiling point of water.

A good rule: if the answer is a name, give it. If the answer is a mechanism, ask first.

Sit in the Silence

After you ask, wait. Research on classroom wait time has found that most adults jump back in after about one second, and that stretching that pause to three to five seconds produces noticeably longer and more reasoned answers from students.

Three seconds feels unbearable when you are the one waiting. Count it out silently the first few times. Almost every adult who tries this reports the same surprise, which is that the kid was mid-thought the entire time.