What is the aim?

The aim of this guidebook is to help you to learn by yourself and understand what the thinking
skills are and how to help your pupils to develop their thinking skills in the English Language in
Primary Schools.

Why Thinking Skills?

The reasons why you need to help your pupils to develop their thinking skills are :

1. We need to produce Malaysian citizens who can think .... skillfully in order to achieve the
goals of Vision 2020.

2. As stated in our National Philosophy of Education we .... need to develop individuals who are
intellectually, .... .... .... spiritually, emotionally and physically balanced and .... .... ....
harmonious.

3. One of the objectives of the Integrated Curriculum for .... Primary Schools (ICPS) is to
develop the pupil’s ability to .... think critically and creatively as well as to make decisions ....
and solve problems.

4. The thinking skills help in a better understanding of the .... language.

5. The thinking skill are also lifelong skills.

How to Learn from this Guidebook?

You can learn about the thinking skills and how to teach them by yourself or by co-operative
learning. It is suggested that you learn through co-operative learning as you can discuss things
with your partner or with the other English teachers. However, you are free to decide.

The suggested steps in understanding the thinking skills from this guidebook are :

1. Read and understand this chapter first as it gives you an overall view of the thinking skills and
how to teach them.

2. Next, read and understand the chapters that follow, one at a time. Each of the chapters
describes one thinking .... .... skill and how to teach it.

3. Then, teach one thinking skill at a time and ensure that all your pupils master that thinking
skill. Emphasise the .... .... process of thinking.
Each chapter describes one thinking skill and is written under the following headings.

a. Introduction :
It describes what that thinking skill is about and gives its importance.

b. Steps :

It states the steps in the process of skillful thinking for that particular thinking skill.

c. Graphic Organiser :

For some of the thinking skills, a few examples of the graphic organiser are suggested to help
your pupils develop their thinking skills.

d. Examples :

One or two examples are given on how to teach that thinking skill. They are not graded
according to levels or years. You may need to adapt them or think of new examples suitable for
your pupils.

e. Activities :

A number of activities are given for you to select from and teach that thinking skill again until
your pupils have understood it. These activities can also be given to your pupils as exercise to be
done individually, in pairs or in groups to reinforce their learning of that thinking skill. However,
they are also not graded according to levels or years.

What are Thinking Skills?

Thinking is a mental process. Thinking skills are the intellectual skills such as the skills of
memorizing and recalling facts and information, clarifying, making analysis, generating ideas,
making decisions, problem solving, and planning.

Different authors of thinking skills have proposed different models and approaches in teaching
thinking skills depending on the aims of using them. They may be confusing to you in the
beginning. However, you should make the effort to understand them thoroughly. Then you
should compare and contrast them and decide which is the easiest for your pupils to understand.
You may need to adapt them or even design your own model or approach of teaching the
thinking skills.
You should also know the following terms commonly used the categorize thinking skills :

a. Lower-order and Higher-Order Thinking Skills:

The skills of memorizing and recalling facts or information are called the lower-order thinking
skills as they do not require wide and deep thinking. Thinking skills such as clarifying, making
analysis, generating ideas, making decisions, problem solving, and planning which require wider
and deeper thinking are called the higher-order thinking skills. Many teachers tend to give
emphasis to the lower-order thinking skills. However, they should also give emphasis to the
higher-order thinking skills.

b. Critical and Creative Thinking Skills:

Critical thinking skills are the skills required to make a skillful assessment of the data and
information received. This involves making a skillful analysis of the data and information.
Making an analysis means breaking up the data and information into parts and studying each part
in more detail. Skillful analysis involves the skills of comparing and contrasting, classifying,
arranging and sequencing, identifying fact and opinion, identifying bias statements, giving the
causes, predicting, making inferences and generalisations, interpreting and summarising.

Creative thinking skills are the skills of generating many, varied and new ideas. Skills involved
in making inventions and innovations may be classed under the creative thinking skills.

c. Vertical Thinking and Lateral Thinking:

These two terms are used by Dr. Edward de Bono. Vertical thinking means logical reasoning and
critical thinking. Lateral thinking means generating many, varied and new ideas i.e. creative
thinking.

d. Convergent and Divergent Thinking:

In convergent thinking, the thinking skills are focused on a particular thing, problem, or issue.
For example:
"The tyre had a nail and some scratches. What caused the tyre to puncture?"

Here, we are looking for evidence which caused the tyre to puncture
In divergent thinking, we want to generate many, varied and new ideas. For example ; "What are
the use of old tyres?"

In this guidebook, the thinking skills that should be mastered by your pupils are not categorized
and are set out as follows:

1. Making association or connections

2. Comparing and contrasting

3. Classifying, grouping, categorizing

4. Evaluating

5. Arranging and sequencing

6. Identifying true or false statements

7. Identifying fact and opinion

8. Identifying bias statements

9. Identifying and giving the causes

10. Identifying the effect/consequences, predicting consequences

11. Making inferences or conclusions

12. Making generalisations

13. Making interpretations

14. Identifying the main ideas, supporting ideas, .... details

15. Making summaries

16. Making decisions

17. Solving problems

You will notice that the above thinking skills are not new. The are already in the Primary School
English Language Curriculum. There may be more but the above thinking skills should be
mastered by your pupils when you are teaching the English Language skills.

Some of the above thinking skills like comparing and contrasting, arranging and sequencing,
evaluating, identifying true and false statement, etc. require critical thinking. Some like
classifying, making summaries, making decisions and solving problems require both critical
thinking and creative thinking.

How to Teach?

When you are teaching the English Language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing,
vocabulary), you should also teach the appropriate thinking skills. This is called the infusion
method where you infuse the thinking skills as you are teaching the content or the language
skills. Look at the following example:

Ali does not like cats. He hits the cat. It runs away. Aminah like
cats. She plays with the cats. It likes Aminah to pat it.

You can develop the lower-order thinking skills by asking the following questions to test your
pupils’ comprehension:

What does Ali hate?

Who hits the cat?

Who likes cats?

Who plays with the cat?

What does the cat like Aminah to do?

You can also develop the higher-order thinking skills by asking the following questions which
require your pupils to think wider and deeper to get the answers:

Why did Ali hit the cat? (your pupils must identify the cause which is: Ali hits the cat because he
hates cats.)

What happens when Ali hits the cat? (your pupils must identify the effect which is: When Ali
hits the cat it runs away.)

Compare and contrast the characters of Ali and Aminah. (Your pupils must be able to look for
the characteristics of Ali and Aminah to make a comparison. They should then be able to say,
"Ali hates cats but Aminah likes cats.")

Now, look at another example:

Ali hits the cat.

Aminah plays with the cat

You can develop the higher-order thinking skills by asking:

Why does Ali hit the cat? (The cause is not given. Your pupils must be able to give the various
possible causes.)

What will the cat do when Ali hit it? (The effect is also not given. Your pupils must be able to
give the various possible effects or predictions.)

Compare and contrast the characters of Ali and Aminah. (Your pupils should be able to make
inferences that Ali does not like cats but Aminah likes cats and then compare their characters.)

Should Ali hit the cat? (The answer is not given. It is a value-judgement question where your
pupils must be able to evaluate. Here, you can instill the value or attitude of love for animals.)

Before your pupils can skillfully answer all the above questions to develop their higher-order
thinking skills, you must first teach them the individual thinking skills until they master them.

When you are teaching a topic or a language skill you should determine which thinking skills are
related to that language skill and should be developed in your pupils. For example, if you are
teaching the letters of the alphabet, you can develop the thinking skills of arranging and
sequencing the letters and making connections with objects that begin with a certain letter. You
should decide whether to give more emphasis on one or two of the thinking skills.
 This guidebook gives you some examples on how to teach each individual thinking skills. You
can use these examples to teach each of the individual thinking skills. You can also use some of
the suggested activities to reteach the individual thinking skills if your pupils have not
understood them. You must emphasise the process of thinking i.e. the steps involve in that
particular thinking skill. You can reinforce your pupils’ learning by giving them more activities
to do on that particular thinking skill so that they can master it.

The various techniques/activities you can use the teaching and learning of the thinking skills are:

1. Question and answer

2. Brainstorming

3. Games, competitions and quizzes

4. Debates

5. Projects

Chapter 19 will explain to you how to infuse the thinking skills in your lessons and will also
describe the various techniques/activities which you can use.