Analyzing the Comprehension Questions in the Oral

Reading Verification (ORV) Test: The Case of

the Public High Schools in the Philippines
Ralph A. Cardeño

Abstract

It is argued that higher-level questions demand higher reading comprehension from

students for them to become interactive readers. The schema and test usefulness
theories serve as its foundation. The study looked into the reading comprehension
skills employed in the Oral Reading Verification (ORV) Test for Grades 7 to 10, the
reading comprehension levels where the comprehension questions belong in the test,
and the implications that could be derived if some reading comprehension skills and
comprehension levels are not reflected in the Oral Reading Verification (ORV) Test.
Content analysis as an approach within textual and conceptual analysis has been used
as a qualitative method of data analysis to identify, enumerate, and analyze occurrences
of specific text questions asked in the ORV test. Results revealed that responding
personally as a reading comprehension skill and literal as a reading comprehension
level describing text questions show their regularity. It is indeed necessary for students
to comprehend higher level questions as they are a prerequisite for higher reading
comprehension. However, lower-order thinking skills have to be highly considered also
as they are significant aspects to reach higher-level thinking because, in the business
of learning, everything is programmatic.

Keywords: Comprehension Questions, Oral Reading Verification Test, Textual Analysis,

Schema Theory, Test of Usefulness

Introduction 1994; Stanovich,1992; Swaffar, 1988 as cited in

Asking higher-level questions necessitates
higher reading comprehension as it opens
opportunities for students to become interactive
readers with the text to generate meaning. In
line with this argument, it can be said then that
theories and models of reading have changed
dramatically in the last several decades, from
seeing reading as primarily receptive processes
from text to the reader, to interactive processes
between the reader and the text (cf., Adams, 1990;
Eskey & Grabe, 1988; Perfetti, 1985; Samuels,
Day, 2005). Since reading is a process that can be
understood by looking at the interaction between
the reader and the text as well as the interaction
among the different component skills involved
in the reading comprehension (Grabe, 1991),
it is understood that "fluent readers not only
seek to comprehend a text when they read, they
also evaluate the text information and compare/
synthesize it with other sources of information/
knowledge" (Sujana, 2006). De Guia (2016)
asserts that in the absence of comprehension,
how students understand and remember the text
 12 Analyzing the Comprehension Questions in the Oral Reading Verification (ORV) Test
is beyond explanation. So an ability to acquire
word meanings from context is a major asset,
contributing further to text comprehension and
providing an indication of the ability to learn from
the text (Diakidoy, 1998). For Suarez (2015),
this points to how much knowledge a reader
has about the subject he or she is reading. So,
he asserts that being able to familiarize with the
events in the text because of their similarities
with the reader’s own life, then generating
important inferences from the text itself would
become so easy for him/her to process as a
reader. These allow Bonganciso (2016) to claim
that in meaningful teaching, the target skill has to
be placed in an authentic situation to make the
process of learning significant to the learners.
The preceding ideas are a telling indication
that reading comprehension describes one’s level
of understanding of a text or message. Rayner,
Foorman, Perfitti, Pesetsky, and Seidenberg (2001)
believe that this understanding is triggered by
the interaction of the words that are written and
how they stimulate knowledge outside the text or
message. In this vein, Pressley and Gaskins (2006)
point out that good readers are very sensitive to
the ideas in the text; responding to those ideas,
most conspicuously is through inferences and
affective reactions, but also through the generation
of additional predictions, images representing the
ideas, questions following from the ideas, and so
on. This prompted Rahmani and Sadeghi (2011)
then to contend that reading comprehension is
an interactive mental process between a reader’s
linguistic knowledge, knowledge of the world,
and knowledge about a given topic.
One very important educational activity
that provides an informed academic decision
about students’ academic success specifically on
finding out their reading comprehension skills
and levels is through testing, one that measures
ability and competence. About the present study,
the students’ reading comprehension skills
and levels have been tested using a diagnostic
test. With the advent of communicative testing,
language tests like the testing of reading require
it to be authentic. Fulcher (2000) explains that
(1) its purpose would allow the test-taker to
recognize the communicative purpose and be
able to respond appropriately, (2) its authenticity
speaks of input and prompts in the language test
that should not be simplified for the learner, and
(3) its context tells that the language will vary
from context to context where every test taker is
tested based on his/her ability to understand the
context of the situation (physical environment,
participants' status, the degree of formality, and
the different attitudes being expressed), as well
as the linguistic context. In reference to the
study’s direction, Harrison (1983) explicates that
a diagnostic test (sometimes called a formative
or progress test) checks on students’ progress
in learning particular language elements of the
course where it is used at the end of the unit
in the coursebook or after a lesson designed to
teach one particular point. In the case of the
present study, the students’ comprehension skills
have been tested quarterly to determine the level
of their text understanding.
On the notion of comprehension, Mckee
(2012) asserts that while reading is an essential
part of an individual’s personal and educational
growth, it is the concept of comprehension that
maybe even more important. He adds that reading
in and of itself is not enough because an individual
needs to be able to breakdown, analyze, and to re-
organize ideas and information. He believes that a
person needs the ability to understand what the
writer is attempting to communicate. In this vein,
the levels of questioning are important factors
that help readers interpret the text and even guide
them in going beyond the text surface. An article
on the “Levels of Comprehension” (n.d.) deduces
that literal questions necessitate answers found
readily in the text, inferential requires answers
Cardeño
sourced from the readers’ “educated guess” or
prediction/s asking them to decipher about what
is going to happen in the story or why something
is so, appreciative questions call for readers to
formulate a personal response to a character or
situation in the story or to the author’s purpose,
critique entails the readers to make a judgment
about the author’s use of language, style of writing,
execution of the text, or the author’s ideas in the
text, evaluative dwells on the reader to make a
judgment about an aspect of the story such as a
character’s actions, and essential demands the
reader to consider an issue addressing the story
“outside” of the story.
When interacting with the written text,
readers are drawn to using their reading
comprehension skills to understand the text. Some
of these are noting details that involves picking
out of pieces of information found immediately
in a given text, identifying main ideas deals with
what the selection/text is mostly about, activating
and using background knowledge where readers
activate their background knowledge and apply it
to aid them comprehend what they are reading,
generating and asking questions to which the
readers ask themselves pertinent questions in
reading the text combining information, recognize
main ideas, and summarize information, making
inferences allows the readers assess or draw
conclusions from information in a text, predicting
permits the readers to gain meaning from a
text by making educated guesses, summarizing
allocates readers to combine information in a text
to elaborate in their own words what the text is
about, visualizing gives opportunity for readers
to make mental picture of a text to comprehend
and processes during reading, comprehension
monitoring provides readers the ability to
know when they comprehend what they read,
when they do not perceive, and apply suitable
strategies to make better their understanding
(Pourhose in Gilakjani & Sabouri, 2016), and
13
responding personally (Day, 2005) requires
readers to respond with their feelings for the
text and the subject in which the answers are not
found in the text; for these researchers, responses
come strictly from the readers, and while no
personal responses are incorrect, they cannot
be unfounded; they must relate to the content
of the text (Day & Park, 2005) reflecting a literal
understanding of the material. When the readers
can use these reading comprehension skills with
ease, then text connection is assured.
However, literature reviews have revealed
that many research studies on reading (Sagirli,
2016; Gilakjani & Ahmadi, 2011; Morales, 2010;
Grabe, 2014; De Guia, 2016; Sanopao, 2016) dealt
mostly on finding out students’ comprehension
level and doing reading remediation, developing
appropriate reading pedagogies as well as
validating text instruction in reading. Qualitative
research studies meant to describe the use of
comprehension questions to possibly imply how
they contribute to the students’ reading abilities
are less explored. In addressing this gap, the
present study was undertaken by analyzing the
comprehension questions employed in the Oral
Reading Verification (ORV ) Test. This reading test
has been conducted for five years now under
the Regional (Region VII) Memorandum No.
427, s. of 2013. Strict compliance of its quarterly
administration to the secondary public high
school students has always been sought where
the activities and reports/MOVs produced in
it have to be accomplished and submitted by
Division ECARP Implementers. The present paper
does not dwell with the quantitative results of
students’ reading oral performance, but only
examines the comprehension questions used in
the said reading diagnostic test.
To strengthen the grounding of the present
study, the theories on schema and test usefulness
serve as its foundation. The schema theory
articulates that written text does not carry meaning
 14 Analyzing the Comprehension Questions in the Oral Reading Verification (ORV) Test
by itself. Rather, a text only provides direction for
readers as to how they should retrieve or construct
meaning from their own previously acquired
knowledge (An, 2013). This is the very reason
why the readers dig for information in a text and
synthesize it with personal schema in the process
of constructing meaning (Shea & Ceprano, 2017).
So reading comprehension is built on an efficient
reader-text relationship.
Citing the preceding argument, this
researcher assumed that meaning does not
lie solely in print itself but interacts with the
cognitive structure or schemata already present in
the reader's mind. To this, Sheridan (1981) infers
that these schemata provide a basis for making
inferences or reading between the lines and make
predictions based on observation of only part of the
input; they "also serve as the vehicles for searching
memory" (Sheridan, 1981) for previously read
material and reconstructing meaning. On the
theory of test usefulness, Bachman and Palmer
(1996, in Alderson & Banerjee, 2002) find it as
a significant criterion by which tests should be
judged. Test usefulness, in their view, consists of
six major components, or what they call ‘critical
qualities’ of language tests, namely construct
validity, reliability, consequences, interactiveness,
authenticity, and practicality. This view has been
fueled by Bachman (1991, cited in Alderson &
Banerjee, 2002) who puts forward the notion that
significant progress in language testing develops
a theory that considers language skill "to be
multi-componential, and which acknowledges
the influence of the test method and test-
taker characteristics on test performance". He
explains what he means an interactional model
of language test performance focusing on two
major components- "language ability and test
method, where language ability consists of
language knowledge and metacognitive strategies
and test method includes characteristics of the
environment, rubric, input, expected response
and the relationship between input and expected
response." In reference to the ORV test, the
students’ language knowledge and metacognitive
reading strategies have been put through an
oral test where under the test method, their
oral reading response is measured using a given
rubric, which could distinguish good readers
from non-readers.
Viewed generally, Suarez (2015) enunciates
the notion that comprehension is the primary
purpose of reading. She adds that in the
Philippines, students who reach high school level
are expected to have developed their reading
comprehension skills because they are asked to
comprehend, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate
large amounts of information. However, for her,
an observation by English teachers revealed that
whenever the lesson is on reading, some of the
students have difficulty answering even simple
questions such as noting details; these are literal
questions in which the answers can be found
readily in the text and are directly stated. Thus,
making inferences about things not directly
stated in the text, she adds, is difficult for them
to do, which they could use to increase their
reading comprehension. In this vein, Day (2005)
affirms the use of questions as an integral aspect
of reading activities. He adds that well-designed
comprehension questions help students interact
with the text to create or construct meaning.
Meanwhile, the results of a 2019 large-
scale academic assessment conducted by the
Programme for International Student Assessment
(PISA) have alarmed the country’s educators
because the Philippines ranked dead last in
reading among seventy-nine (79) participating
countries or economies (Punongbayan, 2019, in
the Statement on the Philippines’ ranking in the
2019 PISA results). Though it is unfair to compare
the Philippines with OECD countries, comprising
some of the most advanced countries and
economies of the world, Punongbayan continues
Cardeño
to articulate that PISA 2018 was participated by
many non-OECD countries, too, including five
of the country’s Southeast Asian neighbors (only
Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Vietnam were
excluded) and the Philippines still fared worse
than its neighbors using the same yardstick.
Responding to this, DepEd acknowledged the
urgency of mitigating the issues and gaps in order
to attain the quality of basic education in the
Philippines.
In this regard, the present study prompted
to laser-focus its main objective on the analysis of
the comprehension questions in the Oral Reading
Verification (ORV ) Test administered quarterly to
the public high school students in the province of
Negros Oriental, the Philippines.
The ORVT, which was based on the Phil-IRI,
utilized the interconnectedness of assessment and
instruction. Hence, the ORV test does not only look
into the causes of reading difficulties but also tries
to record what learners can do. By finding out the
needs and strengths of each learner, the teacher
can produce suitable reading texts (Hoover &
Gough, 1990). Specifics to this, the study sought
the reading comprehension skills employed in the
Oral Reading Verification (ORV ) Test for Grades 7
to 10, the reading comprehension levels where
the comprehension questions being used in the
Oral Reading Verification (ORV ) Test for Grades 7
to 10 belong, and the implications that could be
derived if some reading comprehension skills and
comprehension levels may not be reflected in the
Oral Reading Verification (ORV ) Test for Grades
7 to 10.
METHODOLOGY
The present study refers to a Division
Memorandum Number 52, series of 2017
that came from the Department of Education,
Region VII, Central Visayas, Schools Division of
Negros Oriental, Philippines. The memorandum
15
instructed its Assistant Schools Division
Superintendents and other concerned offices
to conduct the 3rd Quarter Oral Reading
Verification Test in Elementary and Secondary
English; Secondary English, in the case of the
present study. This ORV test assessed the reading
comprehension level of the students, which
is based on the Philippine Informal Reading
Inventory (Phil-IRI) of the Department of
Education (DepEd). As a revised Phil-IRI prepared
in early 2013, before the introduction of the
K-12 Curriculum, it then served as a classroom
teachers’ tool for measuring and describing the
reading performance of students. This is believed
to provide important information about their
students’ current reading levels and abilities,
a move that is believed to strengthen teachers’
provision of appropriate design of reading
instruction for the students’ benefits (Hoover &
Gough, 1990).
In achieving the goal of providing students’
appropriate reading instruction, the ORV test is
expected to categorize non-readers from those
who can read. The substance of the instruments
might differ from those used in other regions in
the country, but the length of the texts and idea of
conducting the said text are closely related since
the templates to be accomplished when results
are generated and submitted to the central office
are the ones to be used all over the country.
This Oral Reading Verification (ORV ) test was
conducted to an estimated fifty thousand one
hundred eight (50, 108) high school students in
about one hundred twelve (112) Department of
Education high school sites in the province of
Negros Oriental, Central Visayas Region.
The present undertaking used textual
analysis as a qualitative method of data analysis
that examines and describes the types, content,
and function of the comprehension questions
employed in the Oral Reading Verification (ORV )
test. Content analysis as a textual (conceptual)
 16 Analyzing the Comprehension Questions in the Oral Reading Verification (ORV) Test
analysis approach is found to be significant in
attaining the objective of the present study.
Content analysis deals with the identification,
enumeration, and analyzes of occurrences of
specific reading comprehension skills and the
reading comprehension levels that have been
employed and used in the ORV test advancing the
notion that well-crafted comprehension questions
determine readers' understanding. This type
of analysis as indicative of the comprehension
questions ascertains the existence of certain
words or concepts within texts or sets of texts
quantifying and analyzing the presence, meanings,
and relationships of such words and concepts so
that these become the basis of making inferences
about the messages within the texts (Berg&
Lune, 2001). Content analysis as a method
of generating data is a conceptual analysis by
nature because the study’s direction began with
choosing a sample or samples to analyze, in this
case, the comprehension questions in the ORVT.
The requirement of coding data (Introduction to
Content Analysis, 2004) into manageable content
categories was dealt with ease in the present study
because comprehension questions serving as data
for analysis were specifically identified from the
very beginning.
Three-phase processes were done in
generating the written data - Phase one of the
written-data-generation identified the reading
comprehension skills employed in the ORV; Phase
two found out the reading comprehension levels
where the comprehension questions for Grades
7 to 10 in the ORV belong, and Phase three
tried to provide significant implications about
the presence of these reading comprehension
skills and reading comprehension levels as
well as those reading comprehension skills and
comprehension levels that might not be reflected
in the Oral Reading Verification (ORV ) Test for
Grades 7 to 10.
RESULTS
The Oral Reading Verification (ORV ) Test
for Grade 7 in Table 1 reveals how each of the
questions used in the text entitled “Lapu-Lapu”
is categorized descriptively as to what type of
reading comprehension skill it is and in what
questioning level it belongs. As shown, many
of these text question types are of responding
personally when it comes to the kind of reading
comprehension skills they demonstrate trying
to strengthen readers’ connection to what they
have read. However, noting details and making
inferences earn good representation likewise.
As also observed, the category description of
the reading comprehension levels (of questioning)
is well-represented in the said text questions. The
text questions one to seven are identified to be
literal, inferential, appreciative, evaluative,
and essential. Only the critique kind of text
questioning has not been explored in the oral
reading test. As seen, text questions that modify
specific reading skills on identifying main and
supporting ideas, distinguishing between fact and
opinion, comparing and contrasting, predicting
outcomes, drawing conclusions, etc. have not
been employed.
The Oral Reading Verification Test conducted
among Grade 8 high school students shown in
Table 2 on indicates that making inferences
and responding personally are the dominating
reading comprehension skills being employed
in the reading text entitled “Hospitality, Filipino
Style”.
As to the determination of the reading
comprehension levels of these text questions,
critique and evaluative are not employed; but,
essential as the highest level of questioning is
explored coupled with the use of inferential as
the most utilized questioning level in this reading
test for Grade 8 students in public high schools.
Evaluative and critique types of reading
Cardeño 17

Table 1. Oral Reading Verification Test in Grade 7 - Student’s Tool

ORV Test Text Title: Reading Comprehension

LAPU-LAPU
Text Questions: Reading Comprehension Reading Comprehension
Skills Levels (Questioning )
1. Who was the chief of Cebu at that time? Noting details Literal
2. How did Humabon submit to the Spanish domination? Making Inferences Inferential
3. Why did the Spaniards burn the natives’ houses? Making Inferences Inferential
4. How did Lapu-Lapu and his men kill Magellan and his people? Noting Details Literal
5. Was it right for Lapu-Lapu to defy Magellan’s order? Why? Why not? Responding personally Appreciative
6. How do you describe Lapu-Lapu as a Filipino Leader? Responding personally Evaluative
7. As a student, how can you defend the country from any foreign
Responding personally Essential
domination?

Table 2. Oral Reading Verification Test in Grade 8- Student’s Tool

ORV Test Text Title: Reading Comprehension

HOSPITALITY, FILIPINO STYLE
Text Questions: Reading Comprehension Reading Comprehension
Skills Levels
1. What is the remarkable national trait of the Filipinos? Noting Details Literal
2. How do Filipinos treat visitors? Making Inferences Inferential
3. Why do visitors or guests taste all the food served? Making Inferences Inferential
4. When does a Filipino consider his party a success? Making Inferences Inferential
5. As a Filipino, how do you find this trait? Responding personally Appreciative
6. If given the chance to modify this trait, how would it be? Responding personally Appreciative
7. As a student, how can you demonstrate hospitality in the
Responding personally Essential
classroom and in the school?

Table 3. Oral Reading Verification Test in Grade 9 – Student’s Tool

ORV Test Text Title: Reading Comprehension

NOT THE END OF THE WORLD
Text Questions: Reading Comprehension Reading Comprehension
Skills Levels
1. What happened to Levy? Noting Details Literal
2. How was Levy taken care of by his relatives and friends? Noting Details Literal
3. What did he want to do after what happened to him? Noting Details Literal
4. Why did he refuse to use a wheelchair? Noting Details Literal
5. What kind of person is Levy? Drawing Conclusion Evaluative
6. What lesson/s have you learned from Levy? Responding personally Appreciative
7. What advices can you share to your classmates or schoolmates Responding personally Essential
who may have lost hope after life’s trial?
 18 Analyzing the Comprehension Questions in the Oral Reading Verification (ORV) Test

Table 4. Oral Reading Verification Test in Grade 10 – Student’s Tool

ORV Test Text Title: Reading Comprehension

JOEY, A SPY IN SKIRTS
Text Questions: Reading Comprehension Reading Comprehension
Skills Levels
1. Who was Joey? Noting Details Literal
2. What award did she receive? Noting Details Literal
3. How did Joey serve during the World War II? Noting Details Literal
4. Why wasn’t she molested by the Japanese? Making Inferences Inferential
5. How was she able to save the hundreds of Americans and Filipino
Making Inferences Inferential
lives?
6. How can you become a hero in your classroom or school? Responding personally Essential
7. As a student, what character traits of Levy would you like to
Responding personally Essential
emulate to others?

comprehension skills are not depicted. DISCUSSION

The Oral Reading Verification Test for Grade
9 students shown in Table 3 indicates that noting
details as a reading comprehension skill has been
used more than the other reading comprehension
skills matching with the text questions. In
contrast, on determining the comprehension
levels of these text questions, it shows exactly that
more of them lean on the literal type of questions.
Other higher levels of questioning like the
appreciative, evaluative, and essential, get one
representation. Inferential and critique as levels
of questioning have not been employed to test
readers to understand the reading text.
The Oral Reading Verification Test for Grade
10 students in Table 4 reveals that the reading
comprehension skills that the text questions try
to find out among the test takers start with noting
details then progress to making inferences and
eventually to responding personally.
The reading comprehension levels that these
text questions sought are literal, inferential, and
essential. However, the critique, evaluative, and
appreciative question levels are not employed.
The data, in general, show that responding
personally as a reading comprehension skill
and literal as a reading comprehension level are
dominant in the text questions asked in the Oral
Reading Verification (ORV ) test
Reading Comprehension Skills
Viewed previously, responding personally
obtains significant presence as there are ten of
them out of the twenty-eight questions asked
from the reading test for Grades 7 to 10. More
questions relevant to this skill are found in Grades
7 and 8. As part of the three types of schema-
building connections ( Waller & Valentine, 2015 in
Sullivan, 2018), Peterson and Taylor (2012 cited
n Sullivan, 2018) assert that “asking students to
make connections between their lives and the text
helps them to access their background knowledge,
put themselves in the main character’s place,
and identify them with the characters and events
in the story” (p.301). They add that if students
can connect with the characters and events in
the story, it will create a memorable and unique
reading experience that students will be more
Cardeño
likely to remember and when students are asked
to make text-to-self connections, they are asked to
tell how the story is like them and explain why. In
this vein, students are asked to find evidence from
the story and explain why and how they can relate
to the story (Peterson & Taylor, 2012).
So asking questions that relate to readers’
lives or characters strengthens understanding
about the world outside of the text as they could
have prior knowledge relating to themselves with
that of the text. This is the why Sullivan (2018)
surmises that when a teacher asks students
questions related to the theme of the story,
this leads to higher-level thinking and a greater
understanding of the text. For her, this character
interpretation is the second example of a higher-
level question where when students are asked
these types of questions, they can compare
various characters within the text, compare the
characters to themselves or somebody they know,
and analyze how the events in the story may
have caused a character to evolve. In the case
of conducting the ORV test for Grades 7 to 10,
students were expected to have acquired higher
level comprehension skills as it would be difficult
for them to successfully hurdle the said reading
test if they lack these necessary reading skills.
As shown likewise, the Oral Reading
Verification Test attempts to measure students’
“reading between the lines” skill as this is one
criterion which projects their higher-order
thinking skill. In this vein, Phillips (1987)
assumed that the ability to make inferences is
necessary for being widely accepted by reading
theorists and researchers. For her, inferring in text
understanding is a constructive thinking process
because the reader expands knowledge by
proposing and evaluating competing hypotheses
about the meaning of the text in an attempt to
refine comprehension progressively. Smith
(2018, cited in Azizmohammadi, 2013) points out
that inferences are evidence-based guesses that a
19
reader draws as conclusions about the unsaid and
based on what is actually said. That is, inferences
drawn while reading are much like inferences
drawn in everyday life. To do inferring, Alfaki
and Siddiek (2013) punctuate that this is about
the reader activating his/her prior knowledge in
which he/she links what he/she has previously
known to what he/she is currently reading and in
this case, to make predictions about what might
happen next. They add that prior knowledge
is necessary for retaining information from a
text because activating it before reading helps
students get ready to read and be open to new
information. Within this constructive thinking
process reading scheme also lies critique as a
level of reading comprehension. However, it
is nowhere to be found in the said ORV test
for Grades 7 to 10. Though it is not the highest
level of text questioning, it is believed to have
posed a great challenge for readers to respond
to it because this requires them to make a
judgment about the author’s use of language,
style of writing, and his execution of the text. It
may also take a much longer time for test takers
who encounter questions of this type of reading
comprehension level to express their ideas in a
time-bound reading test.
Reading Comprehension Levels
On the level of text questioning, literal
is made possible by comprehension questions
which are described as simply noting details;
this level occurred regularly in the Oral Reading
Verification (ORV ) test. Understandably, this level
only requires simple recall from the readers since
this belongs to lower-order types of questions.
Persuading students to use high-level thinking
may not be possible on this scenario because it
only requires them to just recall what they have
read or learned in a manner which produces a
"correct" or "incorrect" response (Tienken et
 20 Analyzing the Comprehension Questions in the Oral Reading Verification (ORV) Test
al., 2010; Walsh & Sattes, 2005, cited in Remark
& Ewing, 2015). This is so because low-level
questions emphasize the recall of specific and
universal methods, processes, structures, and
settings (Freahat & Smadi, 2014). Chen (2016)
agrees that lower-order questions entail the use
of lower-order thinking that includes knowledge,
comprehension, and application; she adds that
lower-order thinking is a prerequisite in the
process of using higher-order thinking. Bloom
(1956, cited in Chen, 2016) suggested that a
person cannot make a good thinking decision
without discerning and determining the facts,
competently applying, and appropriately
disassembling and reassembling them.
So the lower-order thinking questions have
a very significant role to play in comprehending
text. Walsh and Sattes (2005, cited in Remark &
Ewing, 2015) argue that on preparing students
to think critically, the low-level questioning
could disadvantage them. However, this low-
level questioning can prepare students to handle
higher-level discussions. Meanwhile, the “how”
and “why” questions are touted as belonging to
the higher-order thinking questions, but in the
ORV test for Grade 9 students, they have been
used literally as answers to what are explicitly
stated in the text. This fact supports the thought
that answers to literal questions are readily found
in the text.
Implications
Both higher and lower-order types of
questions are asked in the ORV test for Grades
7 to 10. This is because the use of higher-level
questions that involve students to integrate and
use different notion levels ranging from simple
to sophisticated ideas (Theresa, 2015, as cited
in Abosalem, 2016) specifically will improve
students’ learning; this is the process of acquiring
knowledge or skills or attitudes toward subjects
which consequently involve changes in behavior.
Lovsund (2018) refers to this instructional
technique as scaffolding. It helps students to move
progressively toward stronger understanding and
more independence in the reading process. She
adds that scaffolding is composed of successive
levels of support that help students to develop
skills and a deeper understanding of a text. More
so, high-level questions such as critique, evaluative
and essential, although most infrequently used,
are extremely beneficial for student learning
as they entail students to employ higher-order
thinking skills to understand what they have read
(Tienken et al., 2010; Vogler, 2005, in Remark &
Ewing, 2015).
These higher-order thinking skills are the
student’s abilities that are activated when students
encounter unfamiliar problems, uncertainties,
questions, or dilemmas (Tanujaya, Mumu, &
Margono, 2017). When readers encounter these
situations, they can be given opportunities to voice
out ideas that are unique to their experiences
and identities. Significantly, research has shown
that asking higher-level thinking questions is
fundamental to student’s learning (Lundy, 2008,
in Remark & Ewing, 2015), and that is when
teachers emphasize higher-level thinking through
the asking of higher-level questions that greater
reading growth is possible among their students.
Nappi (2017) suggests the need for teachers to
plan questions strategically to encourage students
to examine further the concepts under study to
obtain a deeper understanding. Furthermore,
teachers and professors who are using various
question types during class sessions are enabling
students to practice a wide range of thought
processes (Ewing & Whittington, 2007). In
other words, the use of a variety of reading
comprehension skills and levels allows students
to mentally interconnect different events and
experiences that they could think about the world
outside of their comfort zone.
Cardeño
CONCLUSION
In consonance with the study’s argument,
it can now be concluded that to open vast
opportunities for readers to engage themselves in
meaning-making reading activities with the text,
they must comprehend higher-level questions
that serve as a prerequisite for higher reading
comprehension. Such are the text questions
in the Oral Reading Verification (ORV ) test for
Grades 7 to 10; they are described to have set the
reading comprehension skills as preconditioned
factors. In addition, it is noteworthy to consider
the importance of strengthening first the lower-
order thinking reading skills as they too are
found significant aspects to reach higher-level
thinking; it is because, in the business of learning
to comprehend, everything is programmatic.
However, it is observed that the transition of
asking reading comprehension questions from
lower to higher skills and levels is abrupt and
would affect reader-text interaction since the
students' cognitive understanding and past
experiences are not solidly bridged. Thus, this
study hopes that the Table of Specification, Item
Analysis, and Reliability Test have been strongly
considered in the design of the ORVT because
they are important critical features of language
tests; such that when employed can effectively
strengthen the principled choice of reading
comprehension question skills and levels yielding
significant informed reading instruction.
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