When readers ask questions, they clarify understanding and forge ahead to make meaning. Asking questions is at the heart of thoughtful reading.

   When we view questions as a central way in which understandings develop, instruction becomes a time to help students explore possibilities, not merely to resolve uncertainties but to move beyond: considering alternatives, weighing evidence, and developing yet other questions.

   Much of what we know about intelligence and achievement shows that the power of what individuals know depends, in very large part, not on the information they control but on the questions they ask.

   Good readers ask questions when they learn something new or read something unfamiliar. Asking questions facilitates learning and new information often leads to more sophisticated questions.

   Readers understand that many of the most intriguing questions are not answered explicitly in the text, but are left to the reader's interpretation.