USING BLOOM’S TAXONOMY IN TEACHING READING SKILL

By To Ngan Ha, MA

English lecturer, Foundation Studies Department, Hanoi University

I. Introduction
In the academic year 2015, the author wrote a short article about teaching students to
improve critical thinking in academic reading course at the Foundation Studies
Department (FSD). The conclusion of the article is as follows:

“In fact, it is not an easy task to teach critical thinking when students are familiar to
„learning by training‟ which refers to the „acquiring habits of mind and behavior that
have been shaped others.‟ (Luntley, 2008) In other words, when students are used to
passive learning habits, they will feel reluctant to or even resist to giving their own
opinions or assessment. So it is predicted that teachers will have to deal with quiet
classrooms when asking students to analyze the text to find out any fallacies in
reasoning. Students will expect answers from teachers; they will not, actually,
recognize the significance of this skill since at schools so far, they do not have any
chances to make decision. Teachers then have to be patient and repeat the prime
importance of critical thinking when students have to work in real life. Modeling and
good lead-in are strong suggested before the students are really ready to be open
minded and become more critical to evaluate the information they receive.
To solve the problem in long-term, Luntley (2008) suggests „learning by reasoning‟ as a
way to encourage students to be more rational and well prepared for critical thinking. It
is the way in which “students work out what to do and what to think for themselves.
This is a form of mental activity that requires students to think for themselves and not
just mimic patterns of thoughts and action proffered by others” (p.79).”
The article discussed basic concepts of critical thinking and critical reading. Due to the
limited scope, it has not yet addressed any specific strategies to apply in practice.
Instead, it presented general suggestions as below:

“The reading texts offered in BEL and EAP reading are very appropriate to teach
students to apply the critical skills discussed in section II.
For example, in BEL, students have to read news which was selected from Vietnam
news. Students have to evaluate the information given to decide whether it reflects the
reality so that they can believe in it or it is biased and the author is just trying to deceive
the readers by false facts and prejudiced judgment. Meanwhile, in EAP, students have
to deal with the text presenting arguments. In a normal classroom, they will be
instructed to understand the organization and reasoning in the reading text (critical
reading). But by encouraging students to ask more critical questions, teachers can help
students develop their critical thinking.
So it is recommended that in the academic reading syllabus, besides the basic reading
skills, critical thinking skills should be included.
The form of learning can be in group discussion or writing reflection. By initiating
critical questions, teachers can ask students to reflect on their reading. Students will
write critique to present their evaluation of the text. It will be an integrated part of
reading process in which critical reflection of reading is as important as the number of
correct answers in the reading test.”

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Therefore, many teachers may find critical thinking/ reading useful for teachers but they
are still struggling to realize in their own classrooms.
This article will present Bloom‟s Taxonomy, specifically its cognitive domain as a way
to support reading teachers to improve the BEL and EAP reading programs and their
lesson plans and/ or objectives. At higher education, the ultimate aim of the reading
courses should not only be helping students score as many correct answers in the quiz
as possible, but also achieving higher order thinking skills while processing reading
information.
II. Bloom’s Taxonomy
1. Bloom’s Taxonomy?
This part is to briefly describe Bloom‟s Taxonomy. It includes selected useful extracts
from readings by Bloom (1956) or other authors.
Benjamin Bloom developed the Taxonomy of Cognitive Objectives in the 1950s by
qualitatively expressing different types of thinking. Benjamin Samuel Bloom was born
on February 21, 1913 in Lansford, Pennsylvania, USA. He earned his bachelor‟s and
master‟s degrees from the Pennsylvania State University in 1935. In March 1942, he
received his doctoral degree from the University of Chicago. Bloom died on September
13, 1999.
Bloom‟s Taxonomy provided carefully developed definitions for each of the six major
categories that he defined in the cognitive domain.
(1) Knowledge: Knowledge as defined by Bloom includes those behaviors and test
situations which emphasize the remembering, either by recognition or recall, of
ideas, material, or phenomena. In the classification of the knowledge objectives,
the arrangement is from the specific and relatively concrete types of behaviors
to the more complex and abstract ones. Thus, the knowledge of specifics refers
to types of information or knowledge which can be isolated and remembered
separately, while the knowledge of universals and abstractions emphasizes the
interrelations and patterns in which information can be organized and
structured.
(2) Comprehension: Comprehension includes those objectives, behaviors, or
responses which represent an understanding of the literal message contained in a
communication. In reaching such understanding, the student may change the
communication in his mind or in his overt responses to some parallel form more
meaningful to him. There may also be responses which represent simple

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 extensions beyond what is given in the communication itself. Three types of
comprehension behavior are considered here. The first is translation which
means that an individual can put a communication into other language, into
other terms, or into another form of communication. The second type of
behavior is interpretation which involves dealing with a communication as a
configuration of ideas whose comprehension may require a reordering of the
ideas into new configuration in the mind of the individual. This also includes
thinking about the relative importance of the ideas, their interrelationships, or
their relevance to generalizations implied or described in the original
communication. The third type is extrapolation. It includes the making of
estimates or predictions based on understanding of the trends, tendencies, or
conditions described in the communication. It may also involve the making of
inferences with respect to implications, consequences, corollaries and effects
which are in accordance with the conditions described in the communication.
(3) Application: A problem in the comprehension category requires the student to
know an abstraction well enough that he can correctly demonstrate its use when
specifically asked to do so. Application, however, requires a step beyond this.
Given a problem new to the student, he will apply the appropriate abstraction
without having to be prompted as to which abstraction is correct or without
having to be shown how to use it in that situation. A demonstration of
“comprehension” shows that the student can use the abstraction when its use is
specified. A demonstration of “application” shows that he will use it correctly,
given an appropriate situation in which no mode of solution is specified.
(4) Analysis: at a somewhat more advanced level than the skills of comprehension
and application are those involved in analysis. In comprehension the emphasis is
on the grasp of the meaning and intent of the material. In application it is on
remembering and bringing to bear upoin given material in appropriate
generalizations or principles. Analysis emphasizes the breakdown of the
material into its constituent parts and detection of the relationships of the parts
and of the way they are organized. It may also be directed at the techniques and
devices used to convey the meaning or to establish the conclusion of a
communication.
(5) Synthesis: Synthesis is defined as the putting together of elements and parts so
as to form a whole. This is a process of working elements, parts etc., and

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 combining them in such a way as to constitute a pattern or structure not clearly
there before. This is the category in the cognitive domain which most clearly
provides for creative behavior on the part of learner.
(6) Evaluation: Evaluation is defined as the making of judgments about the value,
for some purpose, of ideas, works, solutions, methods, material etc. It involves
the use of criteria as well as standards for appraising the extent to which
particulars are accurate, effective, economical, or satisfying. The judgments
may be either quantitative or qualitative, and the criteria may be either those
determined by the student or those which are given to him. Although evaluation
is placed last in the cognitive domain because it is regarded as requiring to some
extent all the other categories of behavior, it is not necessarily the last step in
thinking or problem solving. It is quite possible that the evaluative process will
in some cases be the prelude to the acquisition of new knowledge, a new
attempt at comprehension or application, or a new analysis and synthesis.
So what are Bloom’s taxonomy advantages? (Nayef, Yaacob and Ismail, p.173, 2013)

1- When compared with other methods of classifications and Bloom‟s Taxonomy of

educational objectives analysis can provide a means to determine the level at which an
objective is written and the corresponding questions which need to be asked to achieve
the objectives.
2- Bloom‟s Taxonomy has proved its superiority and effectiveness over other methods
after it was verified widely and successfully in research and studies for the analysis of
the instructional questions.
3- Krathwohl (Krathwohl, 2002) stated that Bloom considered his taxonomy as more
than a measurement tool. He also reported that Bloom believed his taxonomy could
serve as a common language about learning goals to facilitate communication across
persons, subject matters, and grade levels as well as serve as a basis for determining the
specific meaning of broad educational goals for particular courses or curriculum, such
as those in the currently prevalent national, state, and local standards.
4- Almerico et al (Almerico & Baker, 2004) defined Bloom‟s Taxonomy as a tool for
planning, implementing, and assessing instruction. One important merit of Bloom‟s
Taxonomy is that it provides teachers and educators with a common frame of reference
that clarifies various types of learning outcomes. Another important advantage is that

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the taxonomy illustrates a wide array of learning outcomes that can be included in any
given instructional area.
5- According to (Junoh et al., 2012), educators must use Bloom‟s Taxonomy in
preparing questions for student exams because in this way, students can be tested with
different types of questions according to Bloom‟s Taxonomy cognitive levels.
2. Criticism on using Bloom’s Taxonomy in teaching (Conti, 2015)
In modern language learning the six domains do not occur hierarchically, instead
several domains can take place at a time while students process the information or
complete a task. Think about the process of writing an argumentative essay in a foreign
language: is generating ideas about a given question/topic a higher skill than evaluating
their degree of relevance to that question/topic, as well as their suitability to the task
and audience? Aren‟t the two levels so closely interwoven for anyone to be able to
separate them? And how can one determine which one is more cognitively demanding
than the other, especially in a foreign language, where evaluating the accuracy of the
grammatical, lexical and sociolinguistic levels of the output is extremely challenging?
This brings us to the biggest issue with the way the Bloom taxonomy is used in
education: the misinterpretation or failure to understand the true nature of language
learning and the cognitive mechanisms that regulate it at various developmental levels.
Being creative in Modern Foreign Language has to do less with content, tasks and
production of artifacts, at lower levels of proficiency, than with creating hypotheses
about how the target language works, risk-taking (creatively seeking opportunities to
test those hypotheses), coming up with communication strategies (creatively
compensating for lack of knowledge of foreign language words), figuring out by
oneself better ways to learn (creatively applying metacognitive strategies). The mistake
often made by some language teachers is that they equate creativity in language
learning to getting students to create a digital artifact or a language learning game; these
activities tap into creativity but not the type of creativity that is conducive to greater
linguistic proficiency. I will come back to this point later on.
3. Suggestions for teachers
3.1 Teachers’ difficulty in teaching reading at the FSD
The reading program was first developed over 10 years ago when the students‟ English
level was much lower than these days. Therefore, the course was aimed to improve
students‟ basic English reading skills. But in recent years, students have acquired quite

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good level of English before they enter the university, thus expecting a more
challenging English program. Teachers themselves when sharing in conversations in the
staff room showed that the program seemed easy to many students. The readings used
to be assigned as homework and in class students only spent time solving the quiz and
doing certain follow-up activities. Now students can both read in class and complete the
quiz just in a blink. They demonstrate fairly good level of comprehension of the
readings. Then teachers have encouraged them to exploit the text to develop their
language production by reproducing the content in oral presentation or discussion. But
very few can do that in a creative and critical way; rather most students try to repeat
exactly what is included in the text. Although they are eager to do so, they have rather
limited competence to apply the language learnt from the text in producing their own
speech or present their ideas.
Starting from that problem and demand, I strong recommend teachers to use Bloom‟s
taxonomy as a tool in setting the objectives of the course and more importantly their
specific lessons.
3.2 Using Bloom’s Taxonomy in teaching reading at the FSD
In this part, two models of critical reading strategies by Karlin (1980) and Singh,
Chirgwin and Elliott (1997) will be presented in connection with Bloom‟s Taxonomy
and relevant examples. Teachers will see how Bloom‟s taxonomy is used in critical
strategies.
Model 1 by Singh et al. (1997)
Bloom’s levels of cognitive
Singh, Chirgwin & Elliot’s Processes
learning

Identifying and record students‟ initial conceptions Pretest of existing knowledge

Obtain information through reading Obtaining new knowledge

Comprehension- looking for

Compare initial and final conceptions
similarities and differences

Analysis- comparing and contrasting,

State how and why conceptions charged drawing conclusions and supporting
the argument

Produce a report on differences between initial and Synthesis

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final conceptions

Give their opinions on how and why Evaluation

Let learners draw conclusions on the accuracy of their

Analysis
conceptions about the given topic

Model 2 by Karlin (1970)

Karlin suggests that students can learn to evaluate a passage or text at three levels:
Level 1- judging the accuracy of the content or information by asking such questions as
when did the story happen? Where was it? What is the source of the information? Who
is the information complete?
Level 2- distinguishing between fact and opinion by raising questions which lead
learners to understand why the statement or opinion should be accepted or rejected.
Level 3- recognizing persuasive statement in the passage by asking what is the author‟s
opinion? What is the message of that story? Is the message good or bad? Why?
To be able to answer those questions, students certainly have to use different levels of
cognitive domain in Bloom‟s Taxonomy. For example, level 1 includes comprehension
and analysis of the information while level 3 students have to evaluate the text to draw
the conclusion.
By being aware of different critical reading strategies and their relations with Bloom‟s
Taxonomy, teachers will help scaffold to build up students‟ critical reading skills steps
by steps.
The BEL reading book at the FSD is designed with a quiz followed up each reading
passage. To answer those Fact vs. Opinion quizzes, multiple choice questions or open
questions, students will have to be able to understand the text, analyze the information
and evaluate different opinions. However, it would be more effective for students to
think more critically of the reading texts if teachers plan more pre- and post- reading
activities. Students can also be asked to find extra materials or information to prepare
for their background knowledge before reading. Post activities may include
synthesizing the information from the three texts to answer certain questions. From the
reading information in the course book, students may be required to make certain
products such as story, diagram, chart, timeline, flip book, puzzle, scrapbook, speech,
questionnaire, poster, travelogue or debate.

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In short, to fully comprehend a reading text, translating from L2 to L1 or answering the
quiz is not enough. It requires a full process from activating one‟s background
knowledge to evaluate the information and use it in various activities. Therefore,
teachers need to design reading lessons that help foster all levels of cognitive skills even
students are at young age.
III. Conclusion
There are various models of cognitive development and reading strategies that teachers
can use to develop reading courses and materials. Bloom‟s Taxonomy is one of the
prominent models that are applied in many courses, not only English Language
Teaching. It has proved to be an effective tool for teachers, yet teachers still need to
consider its disadvantages to properly assess plan the lessons and assess students‟
competence.

REFERENCES
Bloom, B.S., Engelhard, M.D., Furst, E.J., Hill, W.H. KrathWohl, D.R. (1956).
Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Longmans: Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Nayef, E.G., Yaacob, N.R.N., and Ismail H. N. (2014). Taxonomies of Educational

Objective Domain. International Journal of Academic Research in Busines and Social
Sciences, 3 (9), 165-175.

Surjosuseno, T. T. and Watts, V. (1999). Using Bloom's Taxonomy to teach critical

reading in English as a foreign language classes. Queensland Journal of Educational
Research, 15(2), 227-244.

Ziff, D. (?) Utilizing Bloom‟s Taxonomy in Your Classroom. Retrieved 28 Oct 2016
from
http://www.calstatela.edu/sites/default/files/centers/spedintern/hints11bloomtaxonomy.
pdf.