A study was conducted to determine the patterns of questioning behaviors exhibited by four preservice and four inservice teachers in an inner-city elementary school. Specifically, the study examined the types of questions teachers asked, the types of responses given by students, the wait-time between questions that teachers provided for high- and low-ability reading groups, and the discussion time teachers provided high- and low-ability reading groups during pre- and post-story portions of reading comprehension lessons. The teachers were observed for six weeks, using the Question-Response-Interaction (QRI) instrument. Audiotapes of the pre- and post-story portions of the lessons also were collected for analyses. The results showed that both types of teachers tended to pose more textually explicit questions to the low-ability group, regardless of the story portion. The high-ability groups had more discussion time, received more textually implicit and raising type questions, and provided more supported responses. More wait-time between questions was accorded the high-ability group than the low-ability group, and more wait-time was given to pre-story portions than post-story portions of the reading lessons. There were minimal differences between preservice and inservice teachers regarding wait-time. (RL)