1st Edition

Teaching Higher-Order Thinking to Young Learners, K–3 How to Develop Sharp Minds for the Disinformation Age

By Steffen Saifer Copyright 2025
270 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
by Eye On Education

270 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
by Eye On Education

270 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
by Eye On Education

To be truly educated today, students need more than knowledge; they need higher-order thinking skills. Critical and creative thinking is required to recognize and counter disinformation, to overcome thinking errors, and to be successful in school and life. To effectively teach these skills, we must start early, when young minds are still forming. While K–3 students are capable of... Read more

Table of Figures

Meet the Author

Acknowledgments

 

Introduction

Part 1. Thinking about Thinking

Chapter 1. An Educational Imperative

Chapter 2. Types of Thinking Skills: The Tools in Our Head

Chapter 3. Lower-Order Thinking (LOT) Skills: Functional . . . If Not Always Fun

Chapter 4. Middle-Order Thinking (MOT) Skills: Only a Path, but the Only Path, to Wisdom 

Chapter 5. Higher-Order Thinking (HOT) Skills: Instruments of Insight, Innovation, and Invention

Chapter 6. Thought Processes: Common Tasks, Uncommon Thinking

Part 2. Learning to Think, Thinking to Learn

Chapter 7. Higher-order Thinking in Action: Supports and Challenges

Chapter 8. HOT Teaching Precepts: Head, Heart, and Humor   

Chapter 9. HOT Teaching Methods: Context, Cognition, and Creativity

Chapter 10. HOT Instructional Supports:  Sparks, Similes, and Smiles

Chapter 11. Teaching Reading and Writing with Higher-Order Thinking: Yearning to Learn

Index

Biography

Steffen Saifer, EdD, a former teacher and administrator, is an international consultant and writer. He is the author of Practical Solutions to Practically Every Problem: The Survival Guide for Early Childhood Professionals, now in its third edition.

For educators who think that they cannot implement higher-order thinking with primary children, the author simply dispels the myth. Using real examples, snapshots, and the modeling of high expectations for the abilities of students, the author is very thorough and has considered thinking skills not normally implemented in a primary classroom. Now more than ever students need to be able to think critically. –Susan Jaroscak, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Maple Heights City Schools, Ohio, USA

 

Any educator would benefit from the research, examples and activities outlined in this book. I especially appreciated the book being broken into two sections and the delineation between theory and practice. By the time I finished section one, I felt motivated to provide more higher order thinking activities. The most appealing feature of this book is that you can read about why higher order thinking is valuable and then immediately have a guidebook of how to get your students there. –Kelly Carter, Early Childhood Education Specialist, Oklahoma, USA