Guiding Students to Think Deeply About Text
A Bloom’s Question Stems Chart can be downloaded at the end of this post.
As teachers of beginning readers, we sometimes struggle with guiding our students to think deeply about the text they are reading. When a guided reading book only has one sentence per page, it’s sometimes challenging to ask higher-level questions. The Bloom’s Taxonomy Sentence Stems sheet will make this part of your planning much easier!
What is Bloom’s Taxonomy?
Bloom’s Taxonomy is a hierarchy of six major learning goals. It was created way back in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom and his collaborators, Max Englehart, Edward Furst, Walter Hill, and David Krathwohl. The six major categories of Bloom’s Taxonomy are Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. In 2001, this list was revised by Lorin Anderson and David Krathwohl. They renamed the categories as Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create.
If you’d like more information on Bloom’s Taxonomy and how it can be used for both instruction and assessment, check out these two websites.
How to Use Bloom’s Taxonomy Sentence Stems in Guided Reading Lessons
When you’re teaching students a guided reading lesson, the end of the lesson always includes an oral comprehension discussion. By referring to the Bloom’s Taxonomy Sentence Stems sheet, you can begin asking students questions at the lower levels (Knowledge and/or Comprehension) and then “bump up” the conversation by asking higher level questions from one or more of the other Bloom’s categories.
Example
Since most of us are very familiar with the traditional story of the “Three Little Pigs”, here are some sample comprehension questions related to that story.
Knowledge Level: What types of houses did each little pig build?
Analysis Level: Why do you infer the first little pig chose straw for his house?
Synthesis Level: How would you improve on the second little pig’s stick house?
As you no doubt surmised, this sheet will be useful when creating assessments. Additionally, I hope you find it a helpful tool, not only for guided reading lessons but for any instruction that includes asking students questions.
Download your copy of the Bloom’s Taxonomy Question Stems chart.
