The Threads of Reading Blog » higher order thinking

Making Connections – Seeing Relationships

The Weaver — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 23:15:58 +0000

Students who have difficulty seeing relationships may also have trouble drawing conclusions, making predictions or drawing inferences. Teachers can help students develop their abilities to see patterns and relationships by giving students many opportunities to classify and visualize data. Classification activities can be as simple as asking students to create a simple wheel with spokes to generating a complex concept map. Once students have organized the information, be sure to have them explain the relationships and why they organized the data in the way they did.

Building Deep Thinking With Content Instruction

KTankersley — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 06:00:16 +0000

A great way to help students increase their understanding of content text is to get them talking and sharing with one another about a text. Instead of asking simple knowledge and comprehension questions about the text, have students work with partners or small groups to answer 3-4 process or reaction types of questions over the assigned text. Allow students time to both discuss the question, form a response and then share out to the class. Since both types of questions require students to think more deeply and demonstrate deeper levels of comprehension, the whole class benefits from rich discussions that take place with these types of questions. You will also benefit from hearing your students report out and may uncover confusions, misunderstandings or areas where students made connections that you never expected.

Some examples of process questions include the following:

1. What didn’t you understand or what was confusing about this section of the reading assignment?

2. What text in this section was interesting to learn or gave you some new ideas?

3. What is the most difficult part of this concept and what could you do to better understand it?

Some examples of reaction types of questions include the following:

1. If you were the teacher, what questions would you ask your students about this concept or idea?

2. What kind of a picture or doodle does this concept make you think of?

3. What 3 ideas or concepts that you have learned before could be connected to this topic/concept?

I Read It and Now I'm Done!

KTankersley — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:50:25 +0000

Students often have the attitude that once they have read a particular text that they do not need to read the text again. As educators, we need to help students understand that they are not finished with a text just because they have “read it once.” We need to help them understand that just as when you watch a movie a second or third time, each time you read a text you see new ideas and relationships that you did not see the first time. We need to help students see that to really understand a text at deeper levels, multiple readings help us go deeper and understand more thoroughly than a quick “once over” can provide. When students read a story, have them read it quickly through just for the enjoyment of the story. Once they have some familiarity with the story, then have them read it through the text again this time with a specific purpose in mind. For example, you might ask students to read and think about different characters and to mark with sticky notes places where the author provides clues as to the character traits of the main character. Once students have gone through the text again and cited examples then have them compare their notes and interpretations with a partner or small group of peers. Together the students should come to consensus about what the author is trying to convey in the text. This will help each student delve deeper into the material and understand the text at a much deeper level than they would with a “I read it once and now I am done” level of attention.

Comprehension/Higher Order Thinking for Elementary Readers

KTankersley — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:47:38 +0000

As primary students are reading their own books, give them slips of paper that start with a sentence stem such as: I think…; I noticed…; I like…; I learned… or I wonder…” Ask each child to record the title of the book at the top of the paper and to then complete the sentence stem you have given them with a thoughtful conclusion. The child then signs the slip and gives it to you. After several slips have been collected on each book, organize the slips of paper by book. Glue all of the slips on the same book to the inside of a file folder dedicated to that book so that other students may read the comments of their peers about the book. Write the title of the book on the front of the file folder for easy reference.

When you have collected several “thoughts” about the book on the inside of the file folder, the folder is ready to be placed in a “literary corner” of the classroom. Ask a student who particularly liked the book create a cover design on the file folder for you so that the record is bright and catchy.

Place these instant “book comments” in the center for other students to read when they are thinking about new books to select for their own reading. The insight of other students will be informative and helpful as students think about whether or not that book will be a good choice for them as well.

Teaching Reading Comprehension

KTankersley — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:14:00 +0000

After children learn to decode text, the next most important skill for them to develop is the ability to comprehend what they read. One of the ways to check for understanding is to have children explain what has been happening in the section of text that they have read. When children can summarize the actions that have taken place, we can be reasonably assured that they have gotten meaning from what has been read. Once children can summarize what they have been reading well, the next step is to deepen their thinking by asking them to analyze or reflect on the text in more sophisticated ways. We can do this by asking children “why” or “how” questions about the characters or their actions which are not explicitly stated in the story. These questions require children to think more deeply about the text and make connections beyond the literal level. Some examples might be: “How is what happened to character x similar to something that has happened to you? or “Why do you think the father was angry at the store clerk in the story?” Engaging children in thinking about the text as they read builds fluency and enhances deep level processing.