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Teachers’ Teaching Methods in Teaching Higher Order Thinking Skill (HOTS) Comprehension Questions

Kheshinee Ballakrishnan & Maslawati Mohamad
Faculty of Education, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia
Email: kheshinee@gmail.com, maslawati@ukm.edu.my

Abstract
Reading is a main skill that need to be acquired by all pupils. One of the important abilities that needs to be mastered is reading comprehension. Higher order thinking skills (HOTS) is another ability that needs to be mastered by both parties, pupils and teachers. Many pupils are unable to think critically and creatively. Furthermore, many teachers lack the knowledge and strategies in teaching thinking skills. Some of them were ineffective in choosing the appropriate strategies to teach thinking. Several strategies have to be implemented by the teachers in order to improve their teaching approaches to teach HOTS among pupils especially in Malaysia. A case study method was conducted by the researcher to investigate the current teaching methods employed by the some teachers to teach higher order thinking skills through answering reading comprehension questions. Three national primary school teachers from a school in Ipoh, Perak were chosen for this study in order to obtain the data. Teacher individual interview, document analysis and classroom observation were used as the research instruments. The findings revealed that the teachers had employed strategies such as activating prior knowledge, graphic organisers, questioning and brainstorming. These methods employed by the teachers had proven effective by the teachers. The implication of the study is that the teachers should be aware of the strategies that need to be used to facilitate their pupils in answering the higher order thinking skill questions. Suitable strategies tailored to the pupils’ needs should be chosen by teachers so that the pupils could play their part too in improving themselves. Teachers should readily explore other strategies in order to aid the pupils in answering HOTS reading comprehension questions.
Keywords: Reading, Reading Strategies, Reading Comprehension, Higher Order Thinking Skill (Hots), Primary School Teachers

Introduction
A News Straits Times report (dated 25th May 2006) stated that 162,000 Malaysian primary and secondary pupils cannot read. The Education Ministry’s record for the period showed that the bulk of 120,000 pupils who could not read were in primary schools. In this same report, the Deputy Education Minister at that time, Datuk Noh Omar, said that despite these problems, the pupils were expected to sit and pass national examinations such as the Primary School Assessment in Year Six (UPSR), the Lower Secondary School Assessment in Form Three (PMR), and the Secondary School Certificate in Form Five (SPM). Datuk Noh added that the Malaysian education system does not allow these pupils to be exempted from such examinations. This applies to the education system currently too. However, as an effort to prevent the rate of school failure from escalating, from 2006 onwards, the ministry introduced the Kelas Intervensi Awal Membaca dan Menulis (KIA2M) or Early Intervention of Reading and Writing, which is an intervention programme to provide basic reading and writing skills for Year One pupils in National and National Type schools. It has been progressed as ‘LINUS’ under the Malaysian Education Blueprint effective from 2013 up to 2025.
Higher order thinking skill (HOTS) can be regarded as a multifaceted non-algorithmic rational which creates various explanations which involves the solicitation of principles, reflection, and self-regulation. Higher order thinking processes were cognitive processes that can be categorized as remember, understand, apply, analyses, evaluate, and create. The last four categories were usually designated as HOTS. The operational definition of HOTS for this study is referred to the high and low achieving learners’ ability to use

In-Text Citation: (Ballakrishnan & Mohamad, 2020)
To Cite this Article: Ballakrishnan, K., & Mohamad, M. (2020). Teachers’ Teaching Methods in Teaching Higher Order Thinking Skill (Hots) Comprehension Questions. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 10(2), 277–293.

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