Inquiry chart
The inquiry Finding information in complex texts introduces inquiry charts. You can adapt them to your students’ needs, for example by:
- having students generate the questions for the charts orally, with teacher guidance
- having students record their prior knowledge together or individually
- including information transfer from additional and related texts, by adding more lines
- adding a summary line, to help students synthesise the different sources. (This is very helpful for writing.)
This example of an inquiry chart is a useful support for students who are reading information texts and writing information reports about frogs.
|
Topic: Frogs |
What do tadpoles eat? |
What do frogs eat? |
Where can frogs live? |
What eats frogs |
Other interesting facts |
|
What we know |
fish flies mosquitoes |
bees flies mosquitoes sea snails |
under the water in the pond in lakes on a lily pad under a lily pad |
spider crocodile shark fish eel |
Sometimes they dry out. The frog goes up to breathe. |
|
Text 1 |
small water plants |
insects |
in a fish pond |
birds rats hedgehogs |
They go down in the mud when the cold comes. Frogs have long tongues. |
|
Text 2 |
plants |
insects worms beetles snails |
on plants in the pond on grass |
no information available |
Some frogs are poisonous. |
|
Text 3 |
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Summary |
plants and insects |
insects |
in damp places |
birds and small animals |
