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DEVELOPING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS WHEN READING

 

Parents play an integral role in the education of their children. Much of what children learn takes place through everyday experiences at home. Children’s literacy and numeracy development can be improved when parents encourage learning through everyday activities. This can look like: 

  • children watching and listening to parents read 
  • children reading and talking about stories with parents 

 It is important to teach our kids to be thoughtful about the information and stories they read. Each time you read something you bring your personal experiences, thoughts, and beliefs to understand the text. This can make your reading experience very different from someone else.

 

As you read the book, you can help your child notice:

– the kinds of images that are used

– the words used to describe the topic

– the title, subtitle and headings (as applicable)

 

You can ask your child questions like:

  • What does the title mean to you? What does it make you think? 
  • How do you think the main character is feeling? 
  • What would you do if you were in the position of the main character? 
  • Discussing ideas in books and magazines together. 
  • Encouraging children to think and ask questions.
  • Which idea can you back up with the most detail?
  • What’s the perspective on the topic in this book?

Help your child determine whether their main idea about the text is most important to them, to the author, or both. What your child thinks is the most important idea and what the author thinks is the most important idea may not always be the same.

 

In order to help your child identify the author’s message, you can ask them to do the following:

  • Write down what they think is most important.
  • Then, write down what they think the author thinks is the most important idea.
  • Look back at the text to see which of those is supported by more of the details from the text.
  • The authors purpose falls into 3 categories, to inform, to persuade or to entertain. 

 You can ask your child questions like:

  • What do you think is the main idea? What supports that?
  • Check to see if most of the details support that main idea.
  • What’s different about your idea and what you think the author’s idea might be?

Johanne Abbott | Literacy Leader