Teaching Strategies

Five Ws and an H

The five 'W's (what, when, where, why, who) plus an 'H' (how) provide a strategy that is often used in news reporting in order to provide the audience with a quick overview of an event. It generally involves the following:

What: What happened?
When: When did it happen?
Where: Where did it happen?
Why: Why did it happen?
Who: Who was involved?
How: How did it happen?

The benefits of Five Ws and an H

• A useful strategy to help students summarise an article they read.
• Helps students to organise their thinking.
• Can lead students to use a range of question types independently.