Higher-Level Thinking Skills

1. INTERPRETING means explaining or showing what something means.

2. EXPLAINING means making something clear and understandable.

3. EVALUATING means judging, arguing, or estimating; expressing an opinion.

4. PREDICTING means foretelling or declaring beforehand; making a prediction.

5. OBSERVING means watching, paying attention to, or noticing.

6. ANALYZING means studying in detail; determining the evidence; breaking down a subject, separating the parts, and examining their relationship to each other.

7. CLASSIFYING means grouping into sections or categories; sorting or placing into classes.

8. SYNTHESIZING means pulling together; assembling into a whole; solving, planning, proposing, or constructing.

9. COMPREHENDING means describing or grasping; understanding; comparing and contrasting; explaining in one’s own words.

10. HYPOTHESIZING means assuming something for the sake of an argument; proposing a theory, explaining something.

11. MENTAL TRACKING OUT LOUD means talking to oneself.

What Parents Can Do to Encourage These Skills

Cut out graphs, charts, tables, etc., from a newspaper or magazine. Ask your child to interpret the graphic. Give a prize for the effort.

Inquire how things compare and contrast (are alike and are different).

Routinely ask your child’s opinion on a subject or topic.

Ask your child what he or she feels is going to happen.

On a trip, ask your child to explain what he or she sees or notices.

Frequently inquire of your child how parts or elements of something studied fit together.

Ask your child to tell you into what groups certain items should be placed or arranged.

Ask your child what he or she learned from a specific experience or school project.

Ask your child what the author, speaker, presenter, teacher, or friend meant by what he or she said or did.

Present this scene to your child: “What if you did …..? What do you think would happen?”

Push your child to recite what he or she is mentally going through in figuring out an answer or problem. Reciting experiences help to vitalize thought processes. Say, “Tell me what you were thinking and how you arrived at that.”