Engaging Children to be Readers — Critical Engagement with Text— Part 9
“Thinking is skilled work. It is not true that we are naturally endowed with the ability to think clearly and logically — without learning how, or without practicing.” — A.E. Mander
How we read is just as important as what we read. That is why it is critically important that students learn the mechanics of reading (phonics) and to comprehend or understand what they read. We must always take a balanced approach. It is important to not over emphasize phonics for early readers. Children have to understand from the beginning that there is a purpose to reading and that is to make meaning or comprehend.
Once children have that solid foundation of mechanics and understand that every time they read they must work to understand the message. We must take the time to teach and model for students how to engage critically with text. We do this by modeling during a read aloud how to ask questions while we read. This is done by pre-planning the types of questions that we ask. There are three types of questions that students need to learn how to respond to. Those are factual, inferential and critical thinking.
Three levels of questions: factual, inferential, critical thinking
The definitions I am providing is from the work I did with UChicago Impact and their STEP Literacy Assessment.
Factual or Literal Thinking: Requires students to find specific information that is stated in a specific spot in the text. Responses must be accurate based on what is stated in the text, or, at early developmental levels, what is available in the pictures.
A factual question is a low level question. For example, what color is the girl’s shirt? That is something that you can be answered explicitly in the text. There is no thinking required to interpret or understand this question. This type of question will not develop students deep thinking about text. This type of question should be kept to a minimum.
Inferential Thinking: Requires students to add up facts from one place in the text combined with personal experience (schedma, background knowledge) to understand something that is unstated. In narrative text, this is often related to aspects of a character’s feelings or motivation.
As you see in the diagram above, the way to answer an inferential question is to find the text evidence on a specific page or point in the text and then add what you know (personal experience or background knowledge) to come up with what the author did not state explicitly. An example of this, would be the author states that a girl is standing outside without a jacket or boots on and is shaking. The inference is that it is cold out.
Critical Thinking: Requires students to add up multiple inferences made across text or across a large portion of the text combined with personal experiences (schedma, background knowledge) to understand something that is unstated. In narrative text, this is often related to character change, perspective, traits or big ideas of the text (author’s message, theme, lesson)
As you see in the diagram above, the way to answer a critical thinking question is to find the text evidence from multiple points in the text and then add what you know (personal experience or background knowledge) to come up with what the author did not state explicitly.
The more we model and scaffold students in learning and understand how to answer these questions, the better they will be at becoming problem solvers and critical thinkers.
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“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
― Frederick Douglass
The joy is in the journey!
Blessings and Peace,,
Mary
