5.9 Demonstrate research based instructional practices for developing students' higher order thinking to enhance comprehension
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In the past students were only expected to answer questions that the answers were found right in the book, passage, article etc. That is only teaching them to go back a look for answer, but they need to learn how to critically think about things they read, to take it to a new level and apply things in other situations. Questions like "What did the main character in the story do at the end?" are lower level questions. Our students need to take the next step and be able to answer more difficult questions that take critical thinking skills. In the beginning of the year our students did not have the slightest idea how to do this. They were stuck on questions and activity that made them think beyond what was in the text. We have done many activities throughout the year and have walked them through the process of thinking beyond the text. We include higher order thinking skills in everything we do, there is a variety of ways from predicting and inferring to relating and comparing. I have attached a response one of of my students that answered the question: What lesson did the character in the story learn from making poor decisions? This answer is not found in the story they had to read it and figure it out by using their critical thinking skills. She used evidence from the story to support her answer.