Reading Strategies (and Activities) to Improve Reading and Develop Critical Thinking

This post is based on the teaching tip from our upcoming newsletter. Reading is a great way to develop creative and critical thinking. Here are some activity ideas to get the students thinking as they read a text. I hope you find the following activities helpful and let us know if you try any of them out!

1. Using questions to pull out themain idea:

Students read and answer the WH~ questions to complete the chart (in note form only)

Then students write one-sentence that summarizes the text using one of these two formula:

• WHEN + WHO or WHAT + DOES WHAT + WHERE + WHY/ HOW
• WHO or WHAT + DOES WHAT + WHERE + WHEN + WHY/ HOW

For example: In his second year at Hogwarts (WHEN), Harry Potter (WHO) defeated Voldemort by destroying the horcrux (DOES WHAT) in the Chamber of Secrets (WHERE) with the…