Motivate students to share their understanding of a book using these fiction and non-fiction reader response questions and prompts.
Not only do these questions improve reading comprehension skills and activate critical thinking, but they also motivate students to read with a purpose.
So include a few of these reader response questions into your reader’s workshop block this week.
Reader Response Questions for Fiction Books
1. What is a text-to-self connection you can think of after reading the text?
2. How was your prior knowledge been challenged or confirmed after reading the book?
3. What reading strategies did you implement to help you comprehend the text?
4. Based on evidence from the text and your prior knowledge, what do you think will happen next in the story?
5. What’s the main idea?
6. How has your thinking or mindset changed after reading this book?
7. What are the key events in the book?
8. Are there any examples of figurative language in the book? If so, share them.
9. What is the mood or tone of the story?
10. Which text features help you know that the book is fiction?
11. What is one text-to-text connection you have?
12. How did you use context clues to figure out a word you did not know?
13. What would you and your favorite character discuss over breakfast?
14. Which parts of the ending would you change?
15. What can you figure out that the author didn’t say?
16. Are there any parts that confused you while reading? If so, where?
17. What are some similarities and differences between two central characters?
18. If you could step into this story, what’s the first thing that you would do and why?
19. What did you see in your mind as you read?
20. Which parts of the text did you have trouble understanding?
21. What is book genre and how do you know?
22. What do you predict will happen now and why?
Non-Fiction Reader Response Questions
1. What motivated the main character’s actions, and were his/her actions justified?
2. How would you have solved the main character’s problem?
3. What are the best and worst parts of the text? Explain.
4. If you could insert yourself into the book, which character would you be and why?
5. What’s the main idea of the story?
6. How has your thinking shifted after reading this book?
7. What actions or events presented in the text confirmed or challenged what you already knew?
8. Why or why not does the title fit the book?
9. What questions do you have now after reading the book?
10. In what ways did the author make the book interesting?
11. What are two questions that you have after reading?
12. Which characters and events would be good in a movie and why?
13. How would you have added a twist to the ending of the story?
14. Which text features did the author use to help you understand the information better?
15. How would you have solved the main character’s problem?
16. What events caused the character to change?
17. Who or what type of person would be most interested in reading this book?
18. What is the author’s purpose for writing this selection?
19. If you could rename the title of the book, what would it be? Explain.
Reader Response Questions For Poetry
1. How did the author use figurative language in the poem?
2. What do you think is the author’s purpose for writing this poem?
3. If you had the opportunity to change the title of the poem, what would you change it to and why?
4. How would you summarize the main idea of the poem?
5. Who do you think would be most interested in reading a poem like this? Why do you think this?
6. How is the poem different from other fiction or non-fiction texts?
7. Identify a metaphor or simile from the poem. What comparison was the poet making?
8. What is the mood or tone of the poem?
9. Are there any examples of alliteration, personification, or hyperbole in the poem? If so, provide two examples.
10. As you read the poem, what visuals presented in your mind?
11. What are any interesting words used in the poem? List, define, and then write each in a sentence.
Final Thoughts
Now you have a ready-supply of reader response questions to use in reader’s workshop or for various other purposes.
You’ll be able to quickly discover how well students understood the book.
Download a copy of these reading response questions PDF-style.