Manaiakalani Reading Practice Intensive - Thinking - Day 7

This session has made me understand how much more deliberate and focused my comprehension questions and design of Guided reading needs to be. I ask questions, I try to ask "good" questions, but what is good??

My tamariki aren't particularly critical (from my general observations). They tend to believe things they are told and don't really think about it unless I point out things to think about or, what I consider to be obvious faults in their thinking. This session will get me started on thinking about getting more from the literal questions and far more into the evaluative end of the kaupapa. The critical thinking skill is one that is more important than ever to teach ALL tamariki as there is a world of information they are being bombarded with and a lot of it needs critical analysis. They need to be literate in a whole world that never existed when I was a child myself. Although there was still misinformation and misleading information when I was growing up, the invention of the internet and rise of information available to everyone now is overwhelming and needs to be looked at carefully. Anyone can say anything online now - ANYONE. It isn't just published authors or experts that are writing/filming or broadcasting their "facts" and opinions.

The literacies of today.

Looking at Bloom's High Order Thinking diagram, we need to be pushing our tamariki into developing higher order thinking skills. Analysing, evaluative and creating.  Rather than shallow thinking, they need to be deeply think about themes and get more opportunities to be challenged.

In reading there are three main levels of thinking:

Far too often I feel I don't get into Interpretative thinking enough and rarely into evaluative thinking and making judgements.

So many pieces from today's kaupapa showed me how to be better at this so it was an excellent session. I had not thought about critical thinking quite as much as during the day today. My tamariki are enthusiastic about reading at times, but the discussions can be like pulling teeth. Perhaps with more thinking involved, it will make the discussions easier? It will be great to watch and find out over the next few weeks as I move from more literal questioning to evaluative ones.

The rational proposed by the session was that struggling readers rely on the immediate source of information. This was supported by my class's struggle this week when we were endeavouring to compare and connect with two pieces of writing and a video. They struggled beyond the surface features. I will need to work more on this. So it is a definite "must try harder" report on myself this week! Must provide more opportunities and BETTER opportunities for better questions and provocations for my students to help them to develop critical thinking skills. I'm looking forward to it!