Critical reading skills in high school textbooks

Abstract

This article analyzes critical comprehension questions in a group of secondary education textbooks in Peru. The analysis allows establishing a taxonomy of subskills based on the description, grouping and categorization of the cognitive and social processes involved in critical questions. The research show that most of the questions assess critical skills based on the cognitive approach; that is, it is assumed that criticality resides in the mind of the reader. However, despite the number and variety of this type questions, they don't cover a wide range of critical cognitive skills set out in the theoretical review; on the contrary, new subskills were identified from the empirical review. On the other hand, it's shown that about 5% of the questions demand critical literacy skills. These subskills, unlike cognitive criticism, explore deeper critical reflection and are more challenging tasks. Finally, no noticeable differences were observed between textbooks from the Ministry of Education and private publishers.