How Generating Questions Improves Comprehension

When readers generate questions, they first identify the kind of information that is significant enough that it could provide the substance for a question. Then they pose this information in a question form and self-test to ascertain that they can answer their own question. Generating questions about text, likewise, depends on the gist and the function needed for summarizing, but with one additional demand: that the reader monitor the gist to pick out the important points. To generate questions, the reader is required to re-process the information read into question format. The inability to formulate appropriate questions about text is another indicator that comprehension has not occurred.