Higher Level Thinking at Home
In schools today, your child is spending much more time learning to think than learning any facts or information. To put this in perspective, a 4th grade student must be able to evaluate an author’s technique, describe a story’s underlying theme, and cite evidence to defend their opinion of a character’s decision. In more popular culture and media, these skills often get lumped together into the concept of “critical thinking” or “higher level thinking.”
What is higher level thinking?
Most educators agree that the framework developed by Benjamin Bloom in 1956, commonly referred to Bloom’s Taxonomy, is the clearest method to describe these levels to talk about thinking and learning: Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating.
As you can see in the chart below, thinking builds towards breaking down complexity and examining relationships between abstract concepts. This sounds much more like college than it does elementary school to those of us who are adults. However, the Common Core standards have now focused on ensuring elementary and high schools are teaching and assessing student’s abilities at the top three levels. This has led to the crazy looking homework you might have noticed lately.
From my experience as a principal and teacher, these higher level thinking skills are hard to teach equitably. Often, they are well developed in a small portion of students who actively participate in the class discussions and ask lots of questions. However, with 30 students and the insecurities of peer approval, most of the class will sit quietly and lay low. Now add the awkwardness of a zoom classroom. These students will lose out on opportunities to work on these skills without good discussions somewhere in there lives.
It is important to remember that learning and understanding at higher levels comes from depth. Each time a child hears the story they pick up on a new aspect of a character, or another detail in a picture or setting.
The good news is there is plenty you can do at home with little or no preparation to fulfill this need.
Close Reading at Home
Education Departments have agreed that one of the best ways to address higher level thinking reading standards in the classroom is through a process called close reading. This is where the students may read a shorter passage or paragraph several times to better understand each detail and decision the author has made. The familiarity of the text allows students to spend their brains energy on the deeper meanings.
Now think of your child’s favorite movies or that favorite bed time book you have read so many times you have lost count. While you can’t remember where you left your keys, you can probably recite lines from these on command.
Whether a reward after homework or a story before bed, and these characters and plots have become a ritual part of your household. This moment in the day provides a parent with a tremendous opportunity to use close reading strategies and higher level thinking questions that will all but ensure they are on a path to master the grade level standards.
Your questions may start something like:
Do you feel like reading “Madeline or Corduroy?”
Do you want to watch “Moana or Frozen?”
After watching the opening credits or looking at the book’s cover, you may ask a few REMEMBER questions to warm up.
I forgot, what was the name of Moana’s pig?
Do you remember why did Madeline need to go to the hospital?
As you move toward UNDERSTAND questions, you can have them describe the main plot points. Trying to get them to use their own words to describe the events and character feelings.
Why did Elsa lock herself in her room as a child?
Why did Corduroy decide to leave the shelf?
Depending on their grade level’s Learning Targets, you may decide to approach APPLY questions more in science and math. However a question like:
After seeing how Corduroy felt when the girl fixed his button, what might you do next time your sister needs help?
As we move into ANALYSIS, it is important your child has mastered the previous levels. This is where you can pull out a character or scene for a deeper dive. You may stop and reread a page in the book or rewind the movie.
What do you think makes the girl decide to choose Corduroy in the store?
What does the green stone symbolize in Moana and what parts of the movie make you think this?
How was the movie different than the book? What parts were missing?
EVALUATION questions can be the most fun, but you have to keep everything tied back to evidence from the story or movie. You will often be surprised at these answers!
What is the happiest ending in a story you have ever read?
What makes Frozen the best written movie you have ever seen?
How did the author pull you into the story and characters?
Who is your favorite villain character and why? What makes a good villain character?
Lastly, using your nightly journal, you can ask CREATING questions. In this context the most fun is to have them write their own ending to a story with a different goal for the audience’s emotions.
Once you begin to use these type of questions, you will find every conversation can get a little deeper. You can ask CREATING or APPLYING questions to solicit help in fixing a broken toy or rearranging their room. You will find your own brain feeling tingles... its good exercise!!
Look for more posts in the future targeting higher levels of thinking in science, math, and nonfiction.