Cultivating Thinking Skills
By Tiffany Hoffman
Highlights® Cofounder Garry Cleveland Myers, Ph.D., once said: "Highlights helps the child to grow as a thinking person. To be sure, it's great fun to think. Perhaps nothing else brings more satisfaction."
Two one-page features—"Thinking" and "BrainPlay"—engage Highlights readers in creative and critical thinking.
"The 'Thinking' page is accessible to most of our readers," Coordinating Editor Kim Griswell says. "I try to make sure that I always move the questions from lower-level thinking (such as simple recall) to higher-level thinking (such as making predictions)."
In the September 2007 issue, readers observed a Native American powwow on the "Thinking" page. Griswell selects scenes with high kid-appeal that will show diverse people interacting with their environment in their own special ways. Since active scenes draw readers to the page, she tries to feature movement.
"In the real world, we turn and look when something moves. When something seems to be moving on the page, kids can't help but look," she explains.
In the September "Thinking" feature, Griswell believes that kids will likely be drawn first to the people dancing. "This part of the image is close to the center and active," she says. "Kids will also be curious about why the dancers are dressed in native costumes."
When kids start looking at the bigger picture, they will notice other people also wearing native dress. Griswell says, "They will begin to ask questions such as 'Are these people waiting their turn to dance?'"
To answer the questions, kids will have to recognize details, recall their own experiences, and compare and contrast their experiences with those of the dancers. "This kind of analysis moves into higher levels of thinking," Griswell says.
"Thinking" relies heavily on the image to start kids thinking, while "BrainPlay" offers readers a set of open-ended questions that range from easy to more challenging.
"We try to incorporate a variety of kinds of thinking in the questions, including inference, categorizing and classifying, creative thinking, observing, comparing, recalling, and seeing cause and effect," Assistant Editor Linda Rose says. "It's a regular opportunity for readers to think and reason, one of the fundamental cornerstones of the Highlights philosophy."
Rose often hears from families who enjoy BrainPlay together. Sometimes kids write to say they've made up BrainPlay questions.
"We encourage the stretching of those 'thinking muscles,' and we try to incorporate both fun and play in the twenty-plus questions," Rose says. "Imagine what it would be like if pets were allowed in school, for example." That's Fun with a Purpose™.