Effective Strategies for Teaching Young Children Critical Thinking Through Picture Book Reading: A Case Study in the New Zealand Context

<p>Critical thinking is a life skill that empowers people to participate fully in everyday life and to make reasonable judgments and inferences on important issues. Critical thinking is not viewed as an individual, fixed entity, but is instead malleable and influenced by the social and cultural contexts of the learner. This study explored the strategies used by primary school teachers to promote young children's critical thinking, and their rationales for those strategies. It also investigated children's responses to picture book reading, including their opinions and behaviours. A qualitative case study approach was used to investigate the development of critical thinking skills during picture book reading lessons with junior primary children. Four teachers in two schools and 22 children aged five to six years participated in this study. Methods included observations of picture book reading lessons, individual interviews with teachers, paired interviews with children, and collection of documents. These methods were used to collect data about teaching strategies, and to obtain an insider's view of the teachers and children. Data were analysed within and across reading lessons using a content analysis approach, and the children's responses were analysed against the Four Resources Model (Luke & Freebody, 1999a) framework. Six teaching strategies were found to be effective in promoting critical thinking in children. These strategies reflected a sociocultural approach to teaching and learning. The children's reading of picture books showed that the majority of these young children engaged in the practices of breaking the code of texts, of participating in the meanings of texts, and of using texts functionally, with a minority engaged in the practice of critically analysing and transforming texts. This study suggests that to foster critical thinking there is a need for teaching practices to focus on nurturing children to be text analysts and encouraging children to be active questioners.</p>

Effective Strategies for Teaching Young Children Critical Thinking Through Picture Book Reading: A Case Study in the New Zealand Context

<p>Critical thinking is a life skill that empowers people to participate fully in everyday life and to make reasonable judgments and inferences on important issues. Critical thinking is not viewed as an individual, fixed entity, but is instead malleable and influenced by the social and cultural contexts of the learner. This study explored the strategies used by primary school teachers to promote young children's critical thinking, and their rationales for those strategies. It also investigated children's responses to picture book reading, including their opinions and behaviours. A qualitative case study approach was used to investigate the development of critical thinking skills during picture book reading lessons with junior primary children. Four teachers in two schools and 22 children aged five to six years participated in this study. Methods included observations of picture book reading lessons, individual interviews with teachers, paired interviews with children, and collection of documents. These methods were used to collect data about teaching strategies, and to obtain an insider's view of the teachers and children. Data were analysed within and across reading lessons using a content analysis approach, and the children's responses were analysed against the Four Resources Model (Luke & Freebody, 1999a) framework. Six teaching strategies were found to be effective in promoting critical thinking in children. These strategies reflected a sociocultural approach to teaching and learning. The children's reading of picture books showed that the majority of these young children engaged in the practices of breaking the code of texts, of participating in the meanings of texts, and of using texts functionally, with a minority engaged in the practice of critically analysing and transforming texts. This study suggests that to foster critical thinking there is a need for teaching practices to focus on nurturing children to be text analysts and encouraging children to be active questioners.</p>

Stratified Teaching Method of English Picture Book Reading in Primary Schools

With the advancement of the new curriculum reform, many schools have put forward the idea of combing English reading with stratified teaching. Enhancing the effectiveness of reading English picture books is an important goal that most English teachers uphold when reforming the teaching of English reading. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to improve the teaching methods of reading. Reading picture books is an important way to improve students’ core competencies in English. However, at present, the method of teaching reading in primary school is simple; in addition, the teaching activities are not well organized. Therefore, in order to improve students’ core competencies in English, this article points out several issues in the teaching of English picture book reading and provides some pedagogical implications for the teaching in this aspect based on the stratified teaching method and classroom observation by including Class 1, Grade 2 students from a primary school in Leshan as the research subjects.

Exploring the development of early reading literacy and story narrative among young children

While numerous studies have examined the development of reading literacy and language skills of older primary and middle school-aged children, comparably little research focuses on those of younger children. The present study investigates the links between early reading literacy – including reading behavior, comprehension, and engagement–and narrative skills among children aged from 3 to 6. Eighty-five children participated in a picture book reading activity and a storytelling task. Their early reading literacy was rated during a child-led picture book reading, and their narrative skills were scored using the Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument. Although the children’s development varied greatly in three early reading literacy sub-dimensions, we found a significant developmental tendency and a correlated relationship between early reading literacy and narrative skills among young children. The preschool children’s reading initially focused on pictures and gradually transferred to print as their age increased. Moreover, their reading behavior, comprehension and engagement had a predictive effect on narrative structure and linguistic development. This study suggests that school-based practices for early reading instruction should focus on children’s reading literacy and narrative skills in the future.

Randomized Controlled Trial of the Picture Book Reading Program on Cognitive Function in Middle-Aged People

Background: To delay cognitive decline, it is important to engage actively in preventive activities from middle age (50–64 years of age). We have developed a cognitive intervention program using picture book reading, and demonstrated that it is effective for improving memory in older adults. However, the effect of the intervention on memory and other cognitive functions in middle-aged people has not been examined. The current study investigated the effects of the picture book reading program on cognitive function in middle-aged people.Methods: This single-blind (examiners were blinded) randomized controlled trial was conducted in Tokyo, Japan. A total of 65 participants were randomly assigned to the intervention group (IG) (n = 32), in which members attended 12 picture book reading classes held once a week, or the active control group (CG) (n = 33), in which members received lectures on health maintenance. Cognitive tests were conducted before and after the intervention. The primary outcome was memory, and the secondary outcomes were verbal function and executive function.Results: The results showed that there was no significant difference between the IG and the CG in change scores (post minus pre) for memory. On the other hand, there was a significant difference in change scores of the category fluency, which is a measure of verbal function, suggesting improvements in IG compared to CG. There were also no significant differences in executive function.Conclusions: The results indicated that our previous finding of an improvement in memory function in older adults was not found in middle-aged people. However, the findings suggest that the picture book reading program may affect lexical access ability in verbal function among middle-aged people. Because maintaining verbal function is important for daily communication, these findings suggest that this program may be a useful countermeasure for cognitive decline in middle-aged people.Clinical Trial Registration: University Hospital Medical Information Network Clinical Trial Registry, https://upload.umin.ac.jp/cgi-open-bin/ctr_e/ctr_view.cgi?recptno=R000048012, Identifier: UMIN 000042071