Active Listening
Renee Garvin
July 16, 2025
There’s a fast-food restaurant not far from where we live. On nights when we were too tired or got home too late to cook, my
What are Blanks Levels of Questions in The Icing On The Cake book packs?
One of the features of our Icing On The Cake resources is graded Blank’s questions tailored to each page of a popular children’s book. So, what are Blanks Questions?
Blank’s Levels of Questioning is a framework used to help children develop their language and comprehension skills. The technique was developed by renowned developmental psychologist Dr Marion Blank in the late 1970s. It is sometimes called a ‘language of learning’ model, Blank’s Levels or Blank questions.
Many researchers have reported that Blank’s framework provides a good mechanism for educators and others to enhance children’s learning. Blank’s Questions encourage development of general language and vocabulary as well as skills in comprehension, reasoning, inferencing, predicting and problem solving. (Inferencing is ‘reading between the lines’ or making an educated guess, using clues in the text as well as your own previous knowledge and experience to come to a conclusion).
As well as helping children develop skills in these areas, Blank’s Levels of Questioning can also be used to assess the level of abstract language that the reader can understand, and set appropriate language targets.
Blank’s Levels of Questioning has four levels, starting with simple questions asking for basic answers, and moving to more complicated questions with abstract answers. As you move up the levels the questions increase in complexity.
The first level starts with simply identifying objects, people or actions the reader can see in the book. These questions prompt the reader to focus on concrete, observable details – noticing and naming what’s immediately in front of them.
The next level is about describing objects or actions, such as talking about what things look like or what they do. It might also mean putting things into groups or categories. Level 2 asks for more detail around an object’s function, location, and classification.
Level 3 questions are not directly related to objects and require more complex thought, including procedural information and alternatives. This level is about re-telling, defining words, and thinking about things in more depth, beyond what is immediately in front of the reader. These questions encourage the reader to use their own knowledge and thinking skills to consider what might happen. The child might begin to tell stories, put events in sequential order and make generalisations and predictions.
The highest level of questioning becomes more abstract as it focusses on reasoning and problem solving. These questions ask the reader to use critical thinking and verbal reasoning to examine cause and effect. Level 4 questions encourage the reader to draw on personal experience, look at things from different perspectives, explain things, predict outcomes, and justify their responses.
Our carefully created literacy and language resources have been designed by experienced speech pathologists to enrich language development while enjoying popular children’s books together. The Icing on the Cake resource packs break down language learning into manageable steps. The lesson plans are based on studied understanding of the ways in which language develops, and how to support it.
Every resource pack includes a series of research-based questions tailored to each page of a favourite picture book to work through with your child. The thoughtfully scripted questions increase in complexity, strategically guiding young readers from the concrete to the abstract. All of the resource packs include a wide range of question types, and some have Blank’s questions that are written with specific skills in mind, that can offer additional practice in that area (these are identifiable by their stamp on the front page, and the descriptions given on our website). The graded Blank’s questions use evidence-based methods to develop language and literacy while engaging with captivating picture books.
Each resource pack also features assessment sheets for each Blanks level, and includes a way of assessing which type of question the child is succeeding or struggling with. The assessment sheets can be used to set goals and track progress. We’ve also included a suggested pathway chart to support parents and educators with decisions around which level to start with and how to progress.
The Icing on the Cake resources are suitable for preschool children up to grade 3 and can be used by Teachers, Teacher Assistants, Speech Pathologists, Parents and Carers.
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Speech Pathology Tasmania acknowledges the traditional owners of country and their continuing connection to land, sea and community throughout lutruwita (Tasmania) and Australia. We give our respect to the muwinina people upon whose land our offices stand.
