Who What Where When Why How Questions

2nd Grade ELAReading Comprehension4 pages

About this worksheet

Each of the twelve questions here starts with a question word, and the page is for 2nd grade. Part 1 is a short story about Leo building a treehouse in his backyard oak on Saturday morning, with one question each for who, what, where, when, why and how. Part 2 switches to Mia rescuing an orange kitten from a fence after school. In Part 3, students write their own Who and Why questions about Mia's story. It targets Common Core RL.2.1, and the answer key gives short answers and sample questions such as "Why did Mia stack the boxes?"

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Curriculum objectives covered

RL.2.1

โ€œAsk and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.โ€

Questions 1 to 10 cover all six question words across two stories, and questions 11 and 12 have students write their own.

What's inside this worksheet

Leo's Treehouse

Six questions, one for each question word. Answers come straight from the text, such as "On Saturday morning" for when and wooden boards and long nails for how.

The Tiny Sound

Questions 7 to 10 ask what was stuck, where, when, and how Mia reached the top of the fence. She stacked two cardboard boxes and climbed them.

Write Your Own

Students write one question that starts with Who and one that starts with Why about the kitten story.

Answer key

Short answers for questions 1 to 10 and sample Who and Why questions for 11 and 12.

How teachers use it

Question word chart

List the six words on the board with what each asks for: a person, a thing, a place, a time, a reason, a way. Students look back at it for question 5.

Two highlighters

Give students two colors to mark the when and where details in the Leo story before they write. It keeps questions 3 and 4 apart.

Partner swap

After Part 3, partners trade their Who and Why questions and answer each other's. A question the story cannot answer goes back for a rewrite.

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