SIOP® Feature #15: Promote Higher-Order Thinking Skills

Here is one of the biggest mistakes I see in classrooms with English Learners: teachers lower the cognitive demand because students are still developing English.

They give ELLs the matching worksheet while the rest of the class does the analysis project. They ask ELLs to recall facts instead of evaluate arguments. They confuse language proficiency with intellectual ability.

Feature 15 of the SIOP® model pushes back on that assumption. It says: promote higher-order thinking skills for all students, including English Learners.

Just because a student cannot express a complex idea fluently in English does not mean they cannot think that complex idea.

Our job as teachers is to provide the language supports, including sentence starters , graphic organizers, partner discussions, and visual tools, that allow students to engage in higher-order thinking regardless of their proficiency level.

Higher-order thinking refers to cognitive processes that go beyond simple recall and memorization.

Using Bloom's Taxonomy as a framework , higher-order thinking includes analyzing, evaluating, and creating.

Analyzing means breaking information into parts and examining relationships.

Evaluating means making judgments based on criteria.

Creating means producing something new by combining ideas.

Lower-order thinking, including remembering, understanding, and basic application, is necessary but not sufficient.

Students who only practice recall are not developing the critical thinking skills they need for academic success and real-world problem solving.

In the SIOP® model, Feature 15 asks teachers to design lessons where English Learners have regular opportunities to think at the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, not just the lower levels.

This means asking questions that require analysis, evaluation, and creation.

Analysis: “Why do you think the character made that choice?”

Evaluation: “Which solution would be most effective and why?”

Creation: “Design an experiment to test this hypothesis.”

Use question stems that target higher levels

Instead of asking “What happened?” as a recall question, ask “Why do you think it happened?” for analysis or “What would you do differently?” for evaluation.

Provide these question stems as sentence starters so English Learners have the language to respond.

Example: “I think this happened because...”

Example: “A better solution would be... because...”

Use graphic organizers for complex thinking

Venn diagrams can support comparison, cause-and-effect charts can support analysis, and pro-con tables can support evaluation.

These visual tools allow English Learners to organize complex ideas without being limited by their English writing ability.

Use think-pair-share before whole-class discussion

Give English Learners time to think individually and rehearse their ideas with a partner before asking them to share with the whole class.

This processing time makes higher-order thinking more accessible.

Avoid equating language level with thinking level

A beginning English Learner can compare two objects, classify items into categories, predict outcomes, and evaluate options when given the right language supports.

Do not reserve higher-order tasks for students who are fluent in English.

Please Contact us for detailed information on how we can help your educational institution set all teachers and learners up for success.

Can English Learners do higher-order thinking?

Yes. Language proficiency and cognitive ability are not the same thing. English Learners can analyze, evaluate, and create when given appropriate language supports like sentence starters, graphic organizers, and structured partner discussions.

What is Bloom's Taxonomy?

Bloom's Taxonomy is a framework that classifies cognitive tasks from lower-order thinking, such as remembering and understanding, to higher-order thinking, such as analyzing, evaluating, and creating.

In our English Learner Institute , teachers experience higher-order thinking strategies firsthand through model lessons.

Next session: June 8 to 11, 2026.

SIOP® Feature 15 encourages teachers to design tasks at the higher levels for all students.