Making Students’ Writing Bloom: The Effect of Scaffolding Oral Inquiry Using Bloom’s Taxonomy on Writing in Response to Reading and Reading Comprehension of Fifth Graders

Abstract

This pretest-posttest control group study attempted to investigate the effects of using Bloom’s Taxonomy as an oral-questioning scaffold to improve writing in response to reading and reading comprehension by encouraging higher order thinking. Participants, 22 fifth-grade students from a suburban school, were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups. Writing was assessed in two ways; using a holistic score and a point system. The testing instrument was a researcher-created rubric based on Bloom’s taxonomy. Repeated-measures ANOVA revealed that the use of higher order questioning improves writing in response to reading, whether scored holistically or with points. Writing scores showed high interrater reliability. The study showed that when teachers instruct students using a higher order questioning scaffold based on Bloom’s taxonomy, writing significantly improves. The study also investigated the effect of higher order questioning on reading comprehension. Reading comprehension was assessed in two ways; using the Degrees of Reading Power (DRP), a standardized test of reading comprehension, and using a researcher-created test. Neither test showed a significant advantage for higher level questioning over lower level questioning on reading comprehension, although on the DRP standardized assessment, the treatment group showed a strong trend toward greater achievement (p = .06). This study provided preliminary support to the importance of using higher order thinking as a questioning scaffold.