Thinking Strategies for Student Achievement

Use these strategies to develop your students thinking skills and increase their learning in all subject areas.

How can teachers improve students higher level and creative thinking? The revised edition of this handbook provides strategies and sample lesson plans to help students learn to think more effectively and to raise their achievement levels.

Drawing upon past and recent research, the authors discuss the importance of actively engaging all students-including those with a history of low achievement-in higher levels of thinking. Thirty specific strategies, including K-W-L, Read and Think Math, and Reciprocal Teaching, can be readily integrated into daily lesson plans.

This step-by-step guide shows teachers how to:
-Help students develop, refine, and extend their thinking capacities
-Challenge students to creatively approach complex and unfamiliar material
-Encourage students to bring their own perspective to class assignments
-Provide students at all learning levels with appropriate support

With its user-friendly, practical approach, this important resource should be in the hands of every educator!

Features
-Presents thirty research-based, classroom-tested strategies
-Provides step-by-step directions in an easy-to-use, teacher-friendly format
-Includes numerous examples for different curriculum areas and grade levels
-Offers sample lessons that showing how to combine the strategies for increased effectiveness

Benefits
-Shows teachers how to improve learning for all by engaging students in higher-level thinking
-Builds teacher understanding of the rationale for and benefits of using each strategy
-Fosters increased levels of student interaction, active engagement, and meaning-making

'This resource provides a repertoire of high-effect comprehension strategies. It is important for classroom teachers and school leaders to be able to justify why they are using specific strategies and what the benefits are of a specific strategy. Nessel and Graham provide this justification.' W. Dorsey Hammond, Professor of Education, Salisbury University

Teachers at all levels will find this material useful because the text describes each strategy, explains its benefits, presents step-by-step procedures to teach each strategy, and provides suggestions for implementation.' Leonard J. Villanueva, Sixth Grade Teacher, Honowai Elementary School, Waipahu, HI

'One of the books major strengths is the simple and straightforward organization of each chapter, which makes the material predictable, accessible, and easy to follow.' Patty McGee, Fourth Grade Teacher, Norwood Elementary School, NJ

This book can be used at all grade levels and with any curriculum. The layout of each chapter is great, guiding teachers through the strategy without scripting.' Kael Sagheer, Fifth Grade Teacher,
Willa Cather Elementary School, Omaha, NE