How is critical thinking developed?

: What a good question. We could remember, though, that critical thinking is not limited to analyzing reading but plays a role across the board of school and life. How do you find his critical thinking skills in other areas? Does he “read between the lines” in other subjects and in life in general? Is he the kind of kid who goes, “Hmm, if that’s so, well then this also must be so.”Not everybody does read between the lines naturally but, as you say, people can be encouraged to do so and acquire a better ability to do so. If you were going to undertake this task with him, read a book together. Or better yet a short story. Short stories have layered meanings and sometimes a lot of impact. Read Barrow Street. (you can find it on the web) When you get to the ending, go back into the story together and figure out where the clues might have been to the surprise ending. Read The Necklace. Go through the same process but this time knowing the ending will not be what you think. (short stories always have a twist to them) If you deal with a story that’s a bit gruesome, read The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.Those three short stories could go a long way for teaching that there is more to literature than lies on the surface. If he seems to get that, you and he could move on to The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe. (some of these could be rented or bought on tape and listened to in the car) Then ask yourselves, why is the narrator telling that story? While its ending is not so surprising, that story does an excellent job of showing guilt while never saying it.I take my Middle School Language Arts students through just such a process to get them reading deeper into the story. I think short stories lend themselves very well. If you would want an easy book to read though that offers much food for thought, try The Giver.My son is 14 and in the 8th grade. He is currently working in an
: English workbook that I think is excellent for him. Each chapter
: covers an excerpt (about a page long) from various books such as
: “Call of the Wild,” “The Light in the Forest,”
: “Gulliver’s Travel’s,” etc. After he reads the passage,
: there are about 8 questions to answer, multiple choice. Here is
: where he has the most trouble because in order to answer the
: questions correctly, he really needs to have read “between
: the lines,” and think about his answers and not put down the
: most obvious answer. I myself find a few of these questions to be
: hard. Then there is a list of vocab (taken from the selection) and
: their derivatives. Next there are sentence completions (for
: comprehension) and grammar work. He seems to do everything okay
: except for the first part, the critical thinking section. I know
: that part of his problem is that he rushes through the questions.
: How does a child advance from simple reading to a deeper level of
: understanding? In other words, what skills are needed for the
: student to be able to read analytically which is so important for
: high school and how does he acquire those skills?: Thanks in advance for your feedback.: Phoenix

Try reading the book, How to Increase Your Child’s Verbal Intelligence. This is a great how to book for kids of all ages.: Not everybody does read between the lines naturally but, as you say,
: people can be encouraged to do so and acquire a better ability to
: do so. If you were going to undertake this task with him, read a
: book together. Or better yet a short story. Short stories have
: layered meanings and sometimes a lot of impact. Read Barrow
: Street. (you can find it on the web) When you get to the ending,
: go back into the story together and figure out where the clues
: might have been to the surprise ending. Read The Necklace. Go
: through the same process but this time knowing the ending will not
: be what you think. (short stories always have a twist to them) If
: you deal with a story that’s a bit gruesome, read The Lottery by
: Shirley Jackson.: Those three short stories could go a long way for teaching that there
: is more to literature than lies on the surface. If he seems to get
: that, you and he could move on to The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar
: Allen Poe. (some of these could be rented or bought on tape and
: listened to in the car) Then ask yourselves, why is the narrator
: telling that story? While its ending is not so surprising, that
: story does an excellent job of showing guilt while never saying
: it.: I take my Middle School Language Arts students through just such a
: process to get them reading deeper into the story. I think short
: stories lend themselves very well. If you would want an easy book
: to read though that offers much food for thought, try The Giver.: My son is 14 and in the 8th grade. He is currently working in an

Critical thinking develops with practice. As the other posters have suggested, the best thing you can do for your son is to talk with him. Discuss issues. Read stories and discuss them, yes. But also read newspapers and newsmagazines and discuss the issues of the day. Watch the news — or better yet, if you can get it, international news from BBC and Deutschewelle (in English) — and discuss world issues. Discuss his actual high school issues. Get him to look further than the first facile programmed answer.The workbook you describe is the kind of thing I have mixed feelings about. This kind of thing *is* quite useful as a quick measure to test results after the fact, but it does NOT teach or even help teach; it only tests. So if the student hasn’t learned the skills elsewhere, either from a good teacher who uses the book as a summary (and this can i ndeed be a good approach), or at home, the book only confirms his failure.Multiple-choice is deadly. If you are doing real critical thinking, it goes so far beyond multiple-choice that the questions are irrelevant. To really *teach* critical thinking, you need both class discussions and some kind of writing assignments. As we all know from experience, ideas develop in depth and sometimes even change radically when we try to organize them on paper (or screen). A student in Grade 8 should be writing answers/commentaries/analysis a couple of sentences long regularly, daily; paragraphs frequently (say a couple of times a week); and essays of a couple of pages several times a term.Another thing I question is the use of single-page excerpts from books or stories. Again, as a summary or testing tool *after* a good teaching unit, this is a perfectly valid method; but as a presentation of reading material, it is very poor. The student who actually becomes engaged with the writing will be looking for the rest of the book to read instead of finishing the workbook (and personally, I would be happy with this result!) If the teacher is focusing on “covering the material” and finishing the workbook, the clear message to the student is NOT to become encgaged with the writing, but to skim it with no involvement at all, only as a necessary evil in the goal to fill in as many correct blanks as possible.This style of presentation is very popular as it is modelled on the SAT and similar tests. Doing well on the SAT is a valid goal — but you can better prepare students by giving them real skills, reading entire stories and books, discussing ideas in depth, doing real writing assignments, and engaging themselves with the material. Students who have good in-depth educations and a bare minimum of introduction to multiple-choice do better on SAT and similar tests than those who are coached only on tests.Again, this is nmot to say that this kind of book is wrong — under the right circumstances, I’d happily use it myself. It is very much a question of how and why you use it. First get the skills by reading, talking, and probing ideas; then enjoy the book as a challenge.

A very “critical” factor that is often left out when trying to teach kids critical thinking is whether or not the child “visualizes” while they are reading. This concept was developed by Nanci Bell and her program for addressing this is incredible…and powerful! It is called “visualizing and verbalizing: for comprehension and critical thinking”. If a child (or adult) does not “see pictures in their head” while reading, then typically their reading comprehension is weak. This makes it very difficult to JUMP to the step of critical thinking about what has been read. Can your son answer basic “content” questions, questions about details in the story? If not, then to expect him to be able to give main ideas, draw conclusions, make inferences, etc, is getting the cart before the horse. He needs to be taught to visualize and verbalize (with details!!) what he has read. Unfortunately, the V&V program is one that you need to be trained in, but there are training videotapes that can be purchased instead of attending an expensive conference. To get further information about this program, just do a search on the web under Lindamood-Bell programs and reading. This is one of the most powerful programs I have ever worked with as a speech-language pathologist. I have seen my students improve in not only critical thinking, but verbal expression, reading comprehension, written expression, etc. Good luck!Melissa: Not everybody does read between the lines naturally but, as you say,
: people can be encouraged to do so and acquire a better ability to
: do so. If you were going to undertake this task with him, read a
: book together. Or better yet a short story. Short stories have
: layered meanings and sometimes a lot of impact. Read Barrow
: Street. (you can find it on the web) When you get to the ending,
: go back into the story together and figure out where the clues
: might have been to the surprise ending. Read The Necklace. Go
: through the same process but this time knowing the ending will not
: be what you think. (short stories always have a twist to them) If
: you deal with a story that’s a bit gruesome, read The Lottery by
: Shirley Jackson.: Those three short stories could go a long way for teaching that there
: is more to literature than lies on the surface. If he seems to get
: that, you and he could move on to The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar
: Allen Poe. (some of these could be rented or bought on tape and
: listened to in the car) Then ask yourselves, why is the narrator
: telling that story? While its ending is not so surprising, that
: story does an excellent job of showing guilt while never saying
: it.: I take my Middle School Language Arts students through just such a
: process to get them reading deeper into the story. I think short
: stories lend themselves very well. If you would want an easy book
: to read though that offers much food for thought, try The Giver.: My son is 14 and in the 8th grade. He is currently working in an

: Thank you all for your excellent suggestions. I will follow up on them. Because I did not want to be too wordy, I neglected to say that my son is working in a workbook because I am homeschooling him for English. Diagnosed CAPD recently.To Melissa: He sometimes cannot answer basic “content” questions and detailed questions because he does have a poor working memory. The Lindamood-Bell program sounds promising, though.To Sara: That’s the trouble - he does not seem to have critical thinking skills in other areas of his life. He is several years younger than his peers (emotionally and academically). He has read books with me and with his sister. Thanks for the book title suggestions.To Sarah: I will look into the book you posted.To Victoria: A lot of good suggestions, thank you. I thought the workbook was appropriate for him right now because he does resist reading, I think, for a lot of reasons. I also questioned the effectiveness of just having him read an excerpt when we first was introduced to the workbooks but I was given an explanation (I can’t remember what it was) that I was satisfied with at the time. Another thing is writing is his weakest subject so he resists that even more than reading. He also lacks the motivation to do well because of past failures in school, etc. I will make more of an effort to read to and with him.Any more feedback would be appreciated.

Since he has difficulties with critical thinking in areas of his life aside from reading, you might want to work with him from a variety of angles. http://www.criticalthinking.com has a number of different materials that are good. Certain games (such as Rush Hour and SET) don’t necessarily work directly on making inferences from written material, but they do stimulate critical thinking in general. Working on logic and reasoning should help also.I second the recommendation to get a copy of “How To Increase Your Child’s Verbal Intelligence” by McGuiness. Many of the activities stimulate critical thinking, and the explanation of the philosophy of the approach is good (if a bit heavy). You can accomplish a lot more in a given amount of time if you use an oral approach, and all language skills start with an oral base (I think. It’s getting late….).Mary: Any more feedback would be appreciated.