More than Just Glitter: Using Text-Dependent Questions as Part of Foundational Literacy Practice

New strategies come along all the time, but these strategies matter little if educators are not sure why they are using them or what the desired outcome is. Quality literacy instruction should be rooted in effective foundational practices. Text-dependent questions offer a foundation for literacy practices that support students' comprehension, understanding, and discussion of complex texts. These questions can be asked at different cognitive levels -- literal, structural, and inferential. Strategic use of these text-dependent questions can also be used to scaffold student deeper reading and inference making. The questions can also be integrated into a variety of literacy activities and help ensure that the text remains central to the after-reading literacy activities. These activities can be used throughout a literacy curriculum.