Encouraging Thinking Skills

Thinking skills are not the same as the skills needed for learning timetables or advanced spelling words early on in life. Students who score higher in GT tests generally come from backgrounds where life revolves around open-ended discussions and exposure to a multitude of activities like going to museums, fairs, nature trips, petting zoo etc. Free and imaginative play is very important at this age to build the creative, analyzing, questioning and truly inquisitive mind.

In the normal course of life, parents can build a child's thinking skills by playing an active role in guiding him/her through the identification and comparison of similarities and differences.  We can use leading questions to guide our children into thinking about these concepts and in noticing the details, which create the similarity or difference, while building vocabulary to express that understanding verbally.   Many objects found easily in the home can be used for this type of organized analysis:  blocks, pictures, shapes, shoes, utensils, etc.

The important thing is to encourage your children to think deeper than is required when we ask the question this way: "Is this the same or is it different from that one?"  By asking questions requiring more analysis and thinking, "How are they the same, or How are they different?"  Try using questions that have the child explain what they paid attention to when they decided whether the object is similar or different to another.  "What did you notice, was it the number of sides, the color, and the position?"  Allow your child to select items and then quiz or coach you!  Ask her to help you understand what makes the items the same or different.   Follow up with questions that cue the child to look for more than one similarity or difference.  "Is that all the ways that they are the same?"  
 
If a child has difficulty knowing where to begin, coach him by asking guiding questions:  "Let's think about color.  Are they all the same color?  No... Then color is one of the ways that these are different, would you agree?  Let's think about the shape.  What shape is this? (Name the shape - 'square')  Is this other one the same shape? If not, what makes it different or how is it different?" 

When working with older students, we can encourage attention to similarity and differences with more advanced topics, and using knowledge relevant to their age and interests.  Try topics like TV newscast offerings, music genres, sports and sports teams, cars, tools... and one area parents can always get a full analytical report - the similarities and differences of characters in whatever DS/gameboy/Wii/X-Box game your child is playing at the time.  Leading questions work just as well at any age..."What makes them different?", or "How are they the same?"   Help your child to notice that he/she is good at analysis, as in - understanding a multitude of details, similarities and differences among game players and strategies needed for winning the game.  Encourage him/her to take these skills and transfer them to his/her academic learning - what were the strengths and weaknesses of the Northern armies versus the Southern armies during the Civil War? How were they alike?  How were they different?   How is a (geometric shape) the same or different from (another geometric shape)?

A child practicing thinking more deeply gains more understanding, has more ways to relate new information to old, and can more readily transfer these skills into other learning.  This is what they are being tested on and you as a parent can help to build these skills from early on!