Using Strategies to Promote Students’ Critical Thinking Abilities

Teachers are helping prepare students for the future by implementing critical thinking strategies daily in the classroom. Taylor and Peterson (2012), Duesbery (2015), and D’Angelo (1978) showed evidence that students’ reading scores consistently grew, their thoughts, questions, and ability to make connections, and their understanding for how to form critical thinking questions increased. In this qualitative self-study, I discuss different strategies to promote and increase critical thinking abilities in the classroom. Specifically, I focus on achievement and improvements in English Language Arts (ELA). I collected and analyzed data from field notes, pre- and post- self-assessments, and classroom observations. Relating to current research, I highlight the importance of modeling critical thinking strategies in everyday classroom settings so students can begin to understand the questions, how to respond to these questions, and create their own critical thinking questions. Through this process, students are more likely to achieve higher academic success in ELA, as seen through improvements on their reading comprehension, fluency, and ability to create questions.