Thinking Skills at Home

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“Every day thinking, like ordinary walking, is a natural performance we all pick up.  But good thinking, like running the 100-yard dash, is a technical performance… Sprinters have to be taught how to run the 100-yard dash; good thinking is the result of good teaching, which includes much practice.”

There are various models for teaching your children thinking skills.  At Home, At School – It’s Learning, It’s Cool uses the Talents Unlimited Model, a model developed in the early 1970’s in Mobile, Alabama.  It is based on research done by Dr. Calvin W. Taylor from the University of Utah on multiple talents.  This research shows children have many talents and skills that are not normally taught in a thoroughly academic curriculum but that are needed in real-life and real-world situations to be successful.   Activities are based on five talents in the Talents Unlimited Model:  productive thinking, decision-making, planning, communication, and forecasting.

Bloom’s Taxonomy (Improve Your Child’s Thinking Skills) was developed by a group of educational psychologists led by Benjamin Bloom.   Bloom classified thinking into six skills:  knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.   Studies have shown that the majority of time in schools and home is spent using lower level thinking skills – knowledge, comprehension and application.  Improving thinking requires also using higher order thinking skills – analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

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