Increase critical thinking and curiosity when you read aloud. Take story time to a new level.
Learn
Seize it! Reading aloud with your child is filled with teachable moments to:
- Be curious (a marker of academic success).
- Learn how to ask questions (a life skill).
- Develop critical thinking skills.
Basic Concepts
There is a hierarchy of thinking – “Bloom’s Taxonomy” in teacher-speak.
- Six levels – Create, evaluate, analyze, apply, understand, remember.
- With a base in ‘remembering’ and building up to ‘creating’, the levels are designed to move a child’s thinking from simple recall to more abstract and complex.
- Try to use all six levels when reading aloud with your child to reframe how you ask questions.
Concept in Action
Let’s use the example of The Three Little Pigs:
- Remember: Who built his house out of sticks?
- Understand: What was the difference between the house of sticks and the house of bricks?
- Apply: What would you have built your house from?
- Analyze: If all of the pigs had built their houses out of brick, what might have happened?
- Evaluate: What would you have recommended the three pigs do differently in the story?
- Create: Can you write a new ending to the story? What would happen in your ending?
Just Remember
Try to use all six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy when reading aloud with your child to reframe how you ask questions (create, evaluate, analyze, apply, understand, remember).
Do
Helpful Tips
- When you read aloud with your child, try to infuse questions around analyzing, evaluating and creating.
- Asking questions that focus on the recall of facts or events is common. But experiment with higher order questions to deepen your child’s critical thinking.
- Model your own answers. This could be in how you’d answer the question yourself, or apply it to your own day. For example, “I had a tricky meeting today and had to share some bad news. I wonder how I could’ve said things differently. I wonder how the meeting would’ve ended then. Can you help me think what else I could’ve said?”
Your Tip Sheet of Questions
| Example Questions | |
| Create |
|
| Evaluate |
|
| Analyze |
|
| Apply |
|
| Understand |
|
| Remember |
|
More printables
- 1-pager “Can You” questions
- DIY question jar
- Sweet visual for any playroom or fridge