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Let's improve our learners' reading comprehension through HOTS

26 Maret 2025   16:02 Diperbarui: 19 Juni 2025   16:19 71 0

Have you ever felt that when it comes to reading comprehension and tasks that are not similar to what we encounter every day, your students claim that they are too difficult to handle? It is a normal reaction because most reading comprehension activities are designed within the LOTS (Lower Order Thinking Skills) and MOTS (Medium Order Thinking Skills), and those in-depth questions are in the HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills) level. For instance, in many rural schools in Madagascar, students might read a story about a historical place in Madagascar. While they can recall the events or describe the environments (LOTS), they often struggle with tasks requiring them to analyze the underlying moral messages from the story (HOTS). Embedding follow-up questions like “What lesson might the story teach us today?” helps push students toward reflection and synthesis.

Today, I would like to invite you to help improve your learners’ reading comprehension through HOTS.

You may wonder what HOTS, LOTS, and MOTS are. The concepts of HOTS, LOTS, and MOTS are taken from the taxonomy of Benjamin Bloom in 1956 and revised by Anderson and Krathwohl in 2001. By definition, Bloom’s taxonomy is a framework used to classify educational goals by categorizing levels of complexity and specificity in learning objectives. Bloom’s taxonomy is divided into six major categories, each representing a different level of cognitive skill: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating (Krathwohl, 1973). LOTS is developed through the first 3 levels within Bloom’s taxonomy, which are remembering, understanding, and applying. HOTS involves analysis, evaluation, synthesis, and creativity, and MOTS is the concept bridging the gaps between HOTS and LOTS, which involve comparing, contrasting, organizing, and summarizing skills. For example, when we make learners read a news article about the cause of malnutrition in the southern part of Madagascar, they will use their LOTS when we ask them to identify in the text specific places where malnutrition occurs or the group of people mentioned in the text affected by malnutrition. MOTS can be strengthened through summarization of the article, for example, or a comparison of nutritional challenges across different regions of Madagascar. HOTS will be used when teachers ask learners, for example, to make a connection between climate change and the situation in the southern part of Madagascar.

What can we do then as teachers to help our learners improve their reading comprehension through HOTS?

First of all, before we can help our students develop their HOTS in reading comprehension, we should make sure that they have a good foundation in basic understanding (Surtantini, 2019). It means learning new words, decoding skills, finding main ideas, and supporting facts. In-depth training in cognitive techniques will help students figure out their strengths and weaknesses in higher-order thought and their ways of thinking (Thomas & Thorne, 2010). As readers, they need more focused ways to interact with books. This means that improving background knowledge and vocabulary will only help to some degree with reading comprehension (Elleman & Oslund, 2019). 

Students can improve their comprehension by learning how to check their understanding and use different reading strategies. Getting students to interact with the text by making notes, asking questions, and reviewing helps them learn more and think more critically, which strengthens their connection to the material (Roberts & Roberts, 2008). One practical strategy is teaching students how to use margin notes in their reading journals. For instance, when reading an informational passage on Malagasy biodiversity, students can label facts (“F”), ask questions (“Q”), and make connections (“C”). This encourages metacognition and actively engages them with the content. Teachers can also model “think-aloud” by verbalizing thought processes during shared reading, demonstrating how they infer meaning from clues or predict the author’s intent.

Furthermore, when working with narrative texts, educators might pause mid-story and ask students to predict outcomes based on character decisions: “What would happen if this character chose a different path?” These ‘branching questions’ simulate analytical thinking and make reading a dynamic, decision-based experience rather than passive decoding.

Second, we should focus on teaching students how to look at, evaluate, and put together information from books. Instead of just remembering facts, we should train learners to conclude, make assumptions, and think critically about the author's point of view and goal. Students are encouraged to question their beliefs, look into different points of view, and take part in thoughtful discussions through well-thought-out activities and homework. This improves their ability to think critically and analyze information. Students need to be able to voice their views and question assumptions to develop these skills (Okasha, 2021). As guides, we can help our students stay on track, understand the details of what they're reading, and look into interesting side tracks. All of these techniques help students understand what they're reading (Duke et al., 2011). A compelling way to apply this is, for instance, through group discussion circles. After reading an article on cultural tolerance in Madagascar, for example, students could take on roles—such as policymakers, families, or rural youth—and debate the pros and cons of cultural tolerance. These role-based debates not only reinforce comprehension but also encourage empathy, perspective-taking, and reasoning.

We can also design HOTS-friendly worksheets that move beyond “true or false” and instead prompt questions like, “What evidence does the author provide, and is it convincing?” or “Can you think of a local example that illustrates this problem?” When learners start applying ideas to their surroundings—like comparing school dropout rates in their region to national trends—they engage with content on a much deeper level.

Last but not least, if we want our learners to improve their reading comprehension, they need to be in a school environment that pushes them to participate and think critically. Schools should encourage students to consider different perspectives, question their assumptions, and ask questions (Arifin, 2020). This can be done in several ways, such as through open-ended discussions, arguments, and group projects that require students to evaluate and combine information from different sources. Creating a reading wall or classroom forum where students post weekly “Big Questions” from texts they’ve read can foster curiosity-driven learning. For example, if we take the case of a Malagasy EFL learner, questions like “Why do some Malagasy traditions discourage girls from attending school in remote areas?” will promote meaningful dialogue through students' responses using evidence from reading materials and personal experience. Another school-wide strategy is organizing reading-based presentations, where students present posters that summarize and critique articles related to topics such as gender equality, environmental challenges, or educational equity in Madagascar. This public sharing builds confidence while reinforcing HOTS through preparation, synthesis, and communication.

Through these steps, let’s try to implement them in our classroom and bring the best for our learners, for them to improve their higher-order thinking skills.

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