Extensive reading research has demonstrated a variety of ways to improve students’ reading achievement in phonics, fluency, and comprehension. Public schools frequently make changes to curriculum that are conducive to meeting the rigorous Common Core State Standards (CCSS). With new expectations that require students to provide evidence from the text and justify their responses, close reading has become an instructional routine that educators use daily in which students are guided in their understanding of complex texts (Fisher et al., 2015). This routine encourages students to move from surface-level meaning to deeper comprehension through a series of five phases. Within each phase, students are interacting with the same text and continually build a deeper comprehension through higher-order questioning (Fisher et al., 2015). As the texts read during close reading can be a challenge for any young reader to comprehend, it is incumbent on teachers to plan questions that promote deeper comprehension of texts and time for dialogue to be exchanged amongst students (Degener & Berne, 2017). 

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         For students to successfully build life-long comprehension skills, educators must transition from asking students to solely retell information that they have read to scaffolding the various Webb’s Depths of Knowledge (DOK) levels within their questioning. The types of questions educators ask before, during, and after reading have a significant impact on students’ ability to engage in detailed conversations with a variety of texts. Questioning throughout reading sparks intrigue, encourages meaningful connections or discussions, and drives students’ thinking towards comprehending complex texts. This literature review focuses on exploring how differentiated targeted questioning strategies are effective in increasing students’ reading comprehension. This review synthesizes research found regarding targeted questioning strategies and highlights prominent themes that demonstrate connections across researchers.